Randy's Posts

Hello to all, well it has been 6 weeks since the repair surgery and I am feeling fantastic. I have good energy, have been working out regularly, and have very little limitations. What a wonderful recovery. I have a final checkup at Mayo tomorrow and expect an "all clear". I am feeling better than I have felt in the past five years. I am grateful to the surgeons, cardiologists, medical team, my supporters and the technoligy behind the procedure. But most of all I give credit to the Lord who guided the hands and my journey. I wish everyone the same success in their recovery and will periodically check in to this site to see how people are doing. Thank you for all your support during this for me, it certainly made a world of difference. My best regards, Randy

Happy Easter to our Family and Friends. Thank you for all your wonderful messages and well wishes. As an update, I am doing wonderful. This week has been very good progress again. All the wounds are healing quite good and I have only slight discomfort, still on the right side of the chest and the right leg. But certainly nothing to complain about, it is on course for healing properly. I have been exercising regularly and keep getting stronger and with more endurance. I am working out about 50 minutes at a time and with slight resistance, so getting there. The only real health issue is I am still dealing with the headaches. I get 2-3 per week and need to hit em hard and quickly with ibuprofen to knock em down. But, we'll deal with them. Interesting is that my blood pressure is as low as it ever has been, and my heart rate is excellent. Even working out I only get it up to the low 100's. Sharon is doing well and we look forward to the next few weeks of progress. I can see the light when the rehab work restores me to new. Pretty good progress to date. Have a Happy Easter and God's blessings Randy

Wow, it is hard to believe that it has already been 14 days since the repair surgery. I am doing really well and happy with the progress to date. Here is a short update for those who have been so caring. The week started off with me having severe migraines everyday that may have been triggered by the stress the body was put under from the surgery. I learned that I can treat these in the same way with Ibuprofen and I have been able to manage them. Since this Wednesday, I only had one occurrence of an oncoming migraine and it was stopped with just a few Exedrin Migraine. The recovery of the incision has been great with daily progress. I still have some chest tenderness and the right leg is tender where they did the bypass incision. But the pain is nominal. I rate it a 1. Also, I have not taken any prescription pain meds for 9 days. The incisions are healing well. On Wednesday I saw the RN at Mayo and we did a chest xray that showed the lung to be close to full capacity and only a slight air pocket remaining in the chest cavity. There is no concern and the lung should recover completely on its own. Cool. I have made it up to a one mile walk in about 20 minutes. I am exercising two - three times a day now and visited the cardio rehab center to set up my regular rehab 3 times a week starting Monday April 11th. Overall I am feeling great and quite happy with the progress my body has made during the recovery period. Now I start the rehab phase and expect to be in very good recondition in the next 4 weeks. I am so happy to give such a positive progress report and am encourage that the worst is well in the past and that the next weeks will see remarkable progress. I'm on the road back and am excited! Thanks again to all of you who have given me support and your prayers, it worked. Randy