Jeffrey's Heart Valve Journal

2 Month Update - One word - GREAT!

May 7, 2012

Well, it's been 2 months to the day since I had my surgery. Continuing to recover very well. Yesterday, I went out and played some baseball with my teams. I actually played a doubleheader, believe it or not. I had a 1 PM game with one team in the 6 PM game with the other team. I did notice, surprisingly, that my heart rate got up pretty high just doing basic things out there. Normally, when I walk/jog and even throw in a few sprints, on my normal exercise routine since surgery, my heart rate might get above 130 at the end of it (2.2 miles). Yesterday, doing what I consider considerably less, my heart rate was up to 136 the couple of times. I think this has more to do with the intense heat than anything else. Could also be that I forgot to take my Metoprolol yesterday morning. I'm still on half a pill, twice per day.

I took it easy though, Just batted and played a little first base. I wasn't expecting to come back and play until the fall season but really was feeling good enough to do so. If someone would've told me 2 months ago, I'd be playing baseball 2 months from surgery, I'd have thought they were crazy!

I'm still not back to work physically. I've been working for several weeks now at home doing a lot of e-mails, phone calls, administrative stuff. Physically, I'm still not able to do the full demands of my occupation. As a chiropractor, one of the adjustments I do involves having to place the patient on their side and then thrust with my arms and body in order to move the lower spinal joints/pelvic joints. This motion just involves too much force on my chest. It's kind of weird how I can do certain things physically but then something like this is totally different.

Some of the earlier issues I was having like extreme sensitivity in the skin in my upper chest and the tenderness and knot like area of my lower scar are doing much better. Anyway, that's my 2 month update. Basically, could not ask for a better recovery.

Short but Sweet Update This Time - Almost 7 weeks post op

April 22, 2012

Coming up on 7 weeks (this Wed.) post-op and doing GREAT! Great energy, exercise going great, threw a baseball today and that is ALWAYS great. All I have is a little nag at the end of my scar but that seems to be slowly getting better. SO, great, great and more great! BUT I still can't do housework! LOL

One Month Post-Op Update (Ross Procedure)

April 7, 2012

Sorry for the delay in writing but I figured I would not write a 4-week update and rather wait for one month. One month ago today, at this very time, 10PM, I was in the ICU and was just getting my breathing tube out. Hard to believe that 1) it's only been a month 2) how much has transpired since then and 3) how much progress I have made.

Here are some updates, good and bad (well, only a little bit bad). First the good: I continue to walk 2.2 miles pretty much each morning and on the days that I may not walk, I do the stairs in my house (which by the way is definitely more difficult). On my last walk, I interspersed short distances of jogging just to see how I'd feel. I was mostly concerned with how my sternum would feel from the bouncing but that felt perfectly fine. I didn't want to push my heart too much so I only jogged maybe 150 feet or 200 feet at a time. This went pretty well overall and my heart rate did not get high so I may be starting to add this with each walking routine. I'm continuing to do SuperSlow workouts with focus only on biceps, triceps, leg extension and leg curls. Again, I have lowered the weights from what I was doing prior to surgery and I'm not doing nearly the intensity that this workout normally requires. My energy levels remain good and I hardly nap, though I try to most days. At least I get to lay down for an hour or so but probably only sleep 10 minutes if I'm lucky. I started driving again this past week and that's nice. I've been able to sleep on my side probably for the last 2 weeks already. I've been doing a fair amount of work for the past couple of weeks already but this is mainly administrative work that I can do from home like e-mails and phone calls. I started some scar treatment and I'm using "ScarGuard MD", recommended by my dermatologist. In other good news, the upper back spasms and muscle pains have subsided substantially and the massage therapy has really been helpful for this. I have only gained back 4 pounds of the 10 I lost from surgery and hope to keep the rest off!

Now the little bit of bad: my biggest issue is the bottom part of my scar. Almost since the beginning, it has had a hard, knotty, ball of scar tissue - for lack of a better description. I had contacted the surgeon and he mentioned that this is the area where there is the most bending along the scar and that this can happen. The issue is, it's also quite tender at times and if I try to extend back or straight up fully it puts tension or stretch on this area and gives me a sharp pain. (feels like I might actually tear something) I'm just not sure if this is normal at this point or not. I'm hoping it shrinks and loosens up because it's really annoying. The worst part is the lack of flexibility in it. I don't want to be worrying about this thing giving me sharp pains forever every time I extend my torso. To be clear, this is not a bump of thick scar tissue on the surface of the skin, it's more felt underneath. In other not so good news, the last 3 days I seemed to develop a rib issue on the left side. It's an extremely sharp pain that occurs mainly on deep inspiration and limits me from taking deep breaths. The sharp pain occurs almost simultaneously in the mid back on the left side and in the front part of the rib cage on the left side. It most definitely seems to be a “rib head” that is out of place and probably also irritating an intercostal nerve. (nerve between the ribs). There seems to also be the possibility of intercostal muscle strain (strain of the muscle between the ribs). It's been very annoying the past 3 days and really had me concerned with my breathing. Just this late afternoon and evening, it seems to be getting a little better. Normally, I go see a fellow chiropractor and have it adjusted which is typically very successful with rib head subluxations. Unfortunately, I tried this but it was just too much pressure my sternum to tolerate. Lastly, I've been bothered by alternating left and right costosternal (where rib joins sternum) pain and inflammation. I expect this however as a consequence of open-heart surgery and the moving around of my anatomy (rib spreader etc.) I'm going to ramp up my use of cold laser on this area.

That's about it for my one-month update, overall things are going great with the exception of a few minor things which are pretty much to be expected after such a major surgery. Sorry for the long-winded update for those who don't like to read a lot :) - ahem...a certain lady in St. Louis who shall remain nameless.

3 Weeks Post Ross Procedure Update

March 28, 2012

3 weeks ago today I had my surgery and I was recovering in ICU! Hard to believe! I could not even get up by myself, get out of bed, etc. Walking the next day or 2 after surgery felt like learning to walk all over again. Now, I just walked 2.2 miles this morning at a very brisk pace. Things continue to go really well for me. I am grateful that I do not get any of the fatigue that others seem to get a lot of. In fact, I did not even lie down once today and it's 7 PM. Most days, I try to lay down for an hour or two midday, but I'm lucky if I sleep 10 to 15 minutes of that time. I've just never been a napper. I sleep fairly well at night, but now I'm finding that if I don't go to sleep by 10:30PM or so I'm up til about 1 or 1:30AM. (more my normal pre-surgery pattern) I do sleep decent during the night however and again, luckily, I'm not affected by fatigue or feeling of any tiredness throughout the day. I'm mostly bothered by mid to upper back pain and this seems to be in association with chest tightness. Thankfully, I have a wonderful massage therapist who has been coming to my home and this helps tremendously. It just seems that the mid back is quite persistent and took a big hit during the surgery. The chest gives me minimal pain, even when coughing, and like I said prior, I just take ibuprofen 400 mg as needed, and it's needed less and less (I only took one in the past 24 hours). So far, it's been 3 weeks and no sneeze! I've come close a few times but was able to stop it with the old “pressure against lower nose” technique. Saw my cardiologist today for the first time since the surgery and he was very impressed with the results. He listened to my heart and felt the pulse in my neck and had comments like “very nice”. He cautioned me not to push the recovery too fast as he knows I'm prone to do. It's important during the first few months to let the suture lines/soft tissue heal (and we are talking about the sutures inside the actual heart for the valve etc., not the skin). One of the main things that can affect the healing of the sutures is raising the blood pressure. Obviously, when exercising, blood pressure is increased and therefore exercising too much or too intensely too soon would not be a good thing. I was also cleared by my surgeon to do isolated strength training which I did yesterday. I just worked on biceps, triceps and leg curls and leg extensions using the SuperSlow technique that I've done for years. I reduced about 20% on all my weights and went nice and easy and did not do any high-intensity as I would normally do. From a heart point of view this is perfectly okay, it's more of a sternum issue I need to be careful with, and that is why I did only the exercises noted above, which do not put any stress on my chest or shoulders. It's so important to maintain muscle mass and strength. The heart serves the demands of the muscular system so it's really good for the heart. It's just that I need to go easy for a few months, thats all. Even though I was asymptomatic before surgery for the most part, I did notice something yesterday when doing the weights. Even though I didn't push it, and the weights were 20% lighter than my normal amounts, I could tell by the end of my set when it was getting a bit more difficult, that I felt “different” in terms of my breathing and my heart. It's a little hard to describe and as I told the cardiologist today, “the heart just seems more efficient”. And I'm sure it is! I'm also sure that as time goes by and I start doing more and more activity I will eventually come to notice many things that would lead me to the conclusion that I probably was more symptomatic that I realized. Again, I am blessed and amazingly grateful that I live in this day and age and was able to get this procedure done. I'm looking forward to a long, full and active life, with my highly efficient heart.