Gene's Posts

Hey Everyone. This will probably be my last entry in the heart journals. It will be 3 months tomorrow from my mitral valve repair, a MAZE procedure and to repair a small hole in the heart. I had a minimally invasive procedure at Inova Fairfax in Washington DC. Anyhow I am feeling fantastic and I am now 100% back to perfect health. I can lift as much as I use to and have better endurance than I have had in years. It was a pleasure to do strenous work the past 2 days and not be tired or out of breath. Even though I had some complications and setbacks after surgeryand recovery has been much easier than I thought it would be. I wish you all the best. Gene

I have not written in my journal in 6 weeks but thought I would update everything since it was 8 weeks ago that I had my surgery. I have had some ups and downs the past 6 weeks but all and all everything is going really good. I have absolutely no pain in my incision area (I had minimallly invasive mitral valve and MAZE for A fib). I am so glad I choose the minimally approach, the healing process was so easy. After surgery there has been some complications. First about 9 days after surgery I lost eye sight in my left eye. I immediately went to the hospital and they believe a small clot let loose and caused the temporary vision loss. My coumadin was low at the time and was boosted up. I spent the night in the hospital for observation. For the next several weeks I was getting stronger every day. I walk at least a mile a day and now have started jogging too. A few weeks ago I saw my cardiologist and was complaining that I was coughing alot and had a bit of shortness of breath. She had me do a Catscan of the heart and found that I had a Pericardial effusion which is blood or fluid around the heart. Long story short I ended up in the hospital for 4 days. They were going to drain the fluid but waited to see if it went down on its own with a high dose of Moltrin and at the same time they took me off of coumadin. Most of the fluid did go away and I was released with out the drainage procedure. Since then I have been having echos once a week to make sure it does not come back. My heart rate is still kind of high but again the doctors say it will come down! So all and all I am doing well!

I am 15 days post op. Continue to get stronger and more lung capacity. I am in no pain just an occ. twinge here and there. I am walking every day, walked .5 miles yesterday and .6 miles today. Few heart palpitations here and there. My main concern has been my heart rate. It use to be in the high 70's to 80's. Now at resting I can only get it down to 95 or so. I am on 50mg of Metapropal but it really is not helping. Doctors say not to worry about it coming down but I am still awaiting. I had a scary situation happen to me 6 days ago. I suddenly lost vision in my left eye for 15 minutes. They believe a small clout let loose. Increased my coumadin levels. All and all this has been a much easier experience than I thought. Anyone with elevated heart rates post surgery with any thoughts pop me an email wxeye@metrocast.net