Melissa's Posts

Today makes 6 wks since the surgery. I would say that the healing process was pretty normal. Still have some stiffness and pain, especially if I just sit around. Moving is important. Rehab has been uneventful. I feel my best after I've been there. I have had some issues with some arrythmias for which I wore a holter monitor for 24 hrs to see if it would pick them up. Kinda like taking a car into the shop cause of a squeak...never squeaks when you need it to. I have yet to hear the results but I can say that the episodes I was experiencing have stopped. So thats good enough for me. I return to work Monday. Unfortunately thats all my FMLA would allow. I will not go back to my normal 12 hr shifts just yet. I'm too tired and sore by the end of the day to keep working till 8p-9p. So my days will be shorter for a while. Almost all of my symptoms I was experiencing are gone. The ones that are still there are so mild and disappear as quickly as they come. I know that when your heart has CHF, it can take up to a year for the muscle to recover and work properly. But there are days when the pessimism overtakes me and I'm afraid that the surgery didn't fix the problem. Then logic takes over and I realize that I'm not on oxygen anymore and I can do an hour in rehab without passing out. I couldn't even walk down the hallway of the cardiac wing without fainting before the surgery (true story). Thank you to all my HJV buddies who supported me through all of this. It was an incredibly long and frustrating road. But I thank God for the support I found here and for leading me to my Dr and the surgeon who performed the operation. It may not have been the minimally invasive I had hoped for but I am fixed and everytime I look in the mirror and see my scar I'm proud of it and I know that I'm a 32 yr old survivor. My one and only piece of advice for any reading this is listen to your body. You and only you know when something is not right. Medicine is science...every once in a while you find a Dr who takes that science and practices it as an art. Look for that Dr. It took me going through 4 Drs in 3 yrs to find the 5th Dr that stopped looking at the science of it. My heart goes out to those facing surgery. The particulars can be scary but just keep looking towards that light at the end of the tunnel. You will reach it. ~Melissa~