Susan's Journal

Ana Brusso  Dear Susan, great post. Congratulations on your successful surgery. Continued good health and recovery. Merry Christmas and Happy and Healthy New Year. God bless you 🙏❤️❤️‍🩹🤶🏻🎅🏼

Robert Miller  I assume you already have a surgeon since you have a surgery date scheduled. I am surprised that your surgeon hasn't discussed things like that with you. First of all, does the surgeon even do robotic surgery (Gillinov does and he is famous for it but I am not too thrilled with him and his practice). Also are you a candidate for robotic surgery? I was not as they needed to do other procedures that required open heart surgery. Did they tell you about the pros and cons of both surgeries? Was repair vs replacement discussed (first thing should always be repair)? Do you have significant AFib that might require a maze procedure? Are they going to remove the appendage? Also surgery is the easy part, recovery is the hard part. Make sure you are prepared for that. Check out the learning center on this website. https://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/learning-center.php

George Gardopee  Hi Susan. I had mitral valve repair 2 years ago at Cleveland Clinic by Dr Gillinov. I was also asymptomatic and terrified of the surgery. I was very pleasantly surprised by how much easier it was than my imagination let me believe. I was 69 when I had the surgery and although I was not athletic, I did spend the 18 months between diagnosis and the surgery trying to prepare physically. It helped a lot. I did not experience any significant pain while at the CC.  I didn’t take anything stronger than Tylenol after three days.  The CC is amazing and the surgeons and staff are excellent. You can visit CC’s website to get an idea of how safe mitral valve repair surgery is.  I wrote a detailed description of the entire experience in my journal. My surgery (full sternotomy) was a success and my recovery was (thankfully) uneventful. You can expect to be quite fatigued but not in a great deal of pain.

Ask anything here - the people on this site are very knowledgeable and incredibly supportive. 

Valerie Allen  Susan, I encourage you to read George Gardopee’s journal. You can get there through clicking on his name if unsure. Quite a bit of detail.