Brian's Journal

Today I am 15 days post-op. Recovery days 11-14 did not go well.

I'll just give the straight story at the top, but fair warning: it may have some dark moments. If you need some positivity, you might want to keep scrolling.

On Saturday I awoke after a terrible night's sleep to a sensation of strange shortness of breath - a kind that felt like something was stopping me from expanding my chest and lungs. I also felt slightly feverish. By the early afternoon, My wife had driven me to the ER.

I had developed a complication known as a pericardial effusion, or a buildup of fluid around the heart, which required draining. By the next day, I was wheeled into the cath lab at Saint Joseph Medical Center in Towson, MD, where the fluid was drained. The procedure did its job, but sparked a new, more common issue I had to date ducked - atrial fibrillation. My heart rate was in the 100s while sleeping (when I slept), and any physical activity shot it into the 150s. Going to the bathroom felt like jogging. Walking down the hallway felt like sprinting uphill. As of 12:15 AM this morning, the cocktail of drugs I was receiving converted my heart to normal sinus rhythm, and my body felt SOMEWHAT back to its recovering self.

That's the factual summary of events. The emotional fallout? Having gone back into the hospital so quickly for emergency complications, complete with new fears, new pains, new doubts - the weight of it broke me a bit for a couple of days. There were instances where I sat on the side of my bed and just sobbed into my wife Mary's side. At night, I spent hours lying awake (sleeping with a HR over 100 is challenging at best), believing that I just wasn’t making it home again. Too many bad maternal genes inherited from a Mom with a laundry list of cardiac procedures. My maternal grandfather gone from a massive stroke at 59. One dead Uncle after another. I can't outrun my DNA. That's just how it is.

I need to draw an important distinction here - at no time did ANYONE who treated me lead me to believe any of that nonsense. Everyone was cool, professional efficiency: problem, analysis, plan, communication of plan (including how common these complications could be), implementation of solution. My wife was reassured, and reassuring. I just got to a point where my sleep-deprived, still-adjusting-to-life-post-surgery brain began running what Mary calls "the parade of the terribles."

With each up and down of this recovery process, I'm trying to come out with a lesson learned. I might have more to say on this later, but here's what I have so far: if you hit a low point, and have some long, dark nights of the soul, sometimes there's nothing to do but let go and trust the professionals. Let go and allow your people to carry you. Remember the lesson of Victor Frankl: the last and greatest human freedom is to accept one's circumstance and decide how to respond to it. I didn't do well with that last part over the past few days.

I hope putting my story out there might cut down a few thickets of doubt and fear for the next person behind me.

We're still here. That's the only thing that matters.

OHS+10. Hard to believe that it has been ten days. It was a "take the good with the bad" kind of day: I woke with a steadiness on my feet and clarity in my mind that hasn't been there since even before the surgery, with anxiety taking so much of my consciousness. Mary and my duaghter dodged raindrops with me again, finishing our walks for longer distances. Also did two sets of two-flight staircase climbs. All of this movement is loosening what stubborn mucus is still in my respiratory tract. Harder coughing has given way to more oxycodone needed to dull my cough pain enough that I can take hard, productive hacks.

Today's question: How long did many of you retain what feels like a nasty chest cold? For how long? Assuming there's no fever, I would like to know if there's a moment where teams decide that the danger from pneumonia has past.

OHS+9: 9 days post-op from Aneurysm repair and AVR with bovine tissue.

Today’s scary moment was brought by a HR spike to 135 this morning, just as I was taking the morning round of medicine. I did the same thing as while in the hospital and just pounded water while my meds kicked in. My pulse eventually dropped to around 85.

Weather on the east coast has been awful (a.k.a. “April”) so only one walk outside today while dodging raindrops. Still getting in the steps, just around the ground floor (and up and down the stairs).

Today’s lesson: you cannot hydrate enough, especially while finishing LASIX.

“Come, my friends,
'Tis not too late to seek a newer world.
Push off, and sitting well in order smite
The sounding furrows; for my purpose holds
To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die.
It may be that the gulfs will wash us down;
It may be we shall touch the Happy Isles,
And see the great Achilles, whom we knew.
Though much is taken, much abides; and though
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson, “Ulysses”

Talk to everyone soon. Dr. Bavaria and I are gonna go kick the $&!@ out of this aneurysm and fix this aortic valve. Tomorrow is Independence Day.

Hi all: so I’m set for surgery to repair my aortic aneurysm and aortic valve on Tuesday, and could really use some encouragement. My biggest worry at this point is no longer physical, but mental. I’m already cast to perform in a musical production of Sweeney Todd, with rehearsals beginning in July and performances in October. My surgical team has insisted that it is 100% realistic to be able to do this. What scares me are cognitive issues. Will I be able to memorize lines? Remember choreography and lyrics? Anyone else had a challenge set up for 5 months after surgery like this?

Hi everyone:

I'm now T-minus 18 days pre-op, and one issue that's starting to become more important is watching out for illness in the house. My wife is immunocompromised, and consequently gets colds and sinus infections rather easily - and has one now.

This brings up the question for the folks in recovery: how hard did you lock down before the operation? With my own schedule, I'm taking COVID-style precautions: essential trips only, masking, no crowds. What about my family? Outside of my wife I have two college-age children with active social lives who come and go. Do you start keeping your distance? If you catch a cold, does it potentially delay you?

Surgery in 20 days. I know it's been discussed ad nauseum, but any updated advice out there for recliners that are good for recovery? I was looking at a Gladiator power recliner, but there are tons out there with a wide, wide price range.

Hi there - are there any private pilots out there who have completed heart surgery? Have you been able to maintain a private license? (For context, I am learning to fly a Cessna 172 at a nearby airport.)

V-Day minus 29: less than a month to open heart surgery. As of now, anytime I feel like a beer or cocktail, I’m just going to read the Cleveland Clinic’s passage on how alcohol abstinence prevents anesthesia interference/complications and speeds recovery. As the saying goes: sounds like good advice.

Hi everyone. So the last week has been a roller coaster. Last Wednesday, I met with my cardiologist, who described my aortic aneurysm and concluded that it was about 4.8 cm in diameter. He then proceeded to tell me, in more words than this, that I needed to scale back my activities - no sports, no running, no weight training. Walking and light activity only. He then referred me to a heart surgeon (Who is actually chief of cardiac surgery at St. Joseph's in MD.) I met with him today and he concurred with the size of the aneurysm, and also that I did not need surgery YET - but he did NOT concur with the cardiologist's opinion of what my activity level needed to be. He thinks sports, cardio and lighter (no max loads) weight training is fine! He believes exercise helps to keep these issues at bay and wants me to live my life. As appealing as that is, I'd like to get a better perspective than a "split decision" between my doctors in terms of what I should and should not be doing. I want to live a full life, but I also want to be around for my kids and not risk rupturing this aneurysm and dying!! Any thoughts from the community out there concerning what you would do if you learned that you had a moderate aneurysm and received conflicting advice on how to live moving forward? Just how at risk is this for rupture if I follow the cardiac surgeon's advice?

Hi everyone. So I had a meeting with my cardiologist yesterday, and it was a mixed diagnosis with a bad outcome. Apparently the reason I have a leaky aortic valve is because of the fact that I have an enlarged aorta altogether, or an aortic aneurysm. (I believe I have the thoracic kind, but I will be verifying that.). This can be life-threatening, but my aneurysm is not large enough (yet) to warrant that kind of concern, or any surgery. I am seeing a surgeon in the next two weeks, but all signs point to a "watchful waiting" period where they monitor how quickly the aneurysm grows. This is driving me crazy for two reasons. First - during this waiting period, my activity is severely restricted - no running, no weights, no sports. The aneurysm may not grow again, so I could be in this waiting period for the remainder of my life. So in other words, there is a very real chance that I just have to live with the lifestyle of a 75 year-old, thirty years early. That might sound whiny, but it leads into my next concern: why NOT fix it? I accept that there are significant risks to the surgery - but there are significant risks to leaving an aneurysm in your body! I feel like a time bomb. So - anyone out there have experience with these? Any advice on coping or finding some kind of activity level that will keep me out of danger but also keep me sane? I've relied on working out as my primary means to relieve stress for 25 years. It seems completely unreal to me that it could be simply here one day and gone the next.

Hi everyone. I'm brand new here. I'm a 45 year-old professional, who spends his spare time playing and coaching baseball and lifting weights. Two weeks ago I was rushed to the hospital after a treadmill workout caused my heart rate to spike to 270 beats per minute. They were able to calm down my heart until it settled into a normal rate but atrial fibrillation, after which it converted back into a normal rhythm. The hospital cardiologists expected me to recover completely and get back to normal (albeit with medication)... until I had an echocardiogram that revealed moderate to severe aortic valve regurgitation. That has since been confirmed by a second echo with a new cardiologist recommended by my neighbor (who has had two heart attacks and a valve replacement). Next up is a TEE procedure on 7/7, where hopefully we'll get a final diagnosis and plan of action. Until then, I'm kind of stuck in Dr. Seuss' "waiting place." I need to stay as sedentary as possible until the 7/7 procedure. Considering my maternal side of the family's cardiac history (name it and it's there), I should have expected a possibility of something, but... at 45? As an athlete? Looking at losing an entire year and then having to rebuild all over again? I'm still reeling. Pardon the expression, but this has been a bit of a dick punch. Since I'm at the beginning of this process - any other sports people out there been through this and come out the other side?