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Patient Documentary: Kim’s Must-See Heart Surgery Success Story

Written By: Adam Pick, Patient Advocate, Author & Website Founder
Published: August 5, 2025

If you ever wanted to truly understand the patient experience of having heart surgery, I encourage you to watch this extraordinary video that was sent to me from Kim Gray, a minimally-invasive heart valve replacement patient of Dr. Neelan Doolabh at UT Southwestern in Dallas, Texas. There is so much educational, empowering and authentic information in Kim’s video that I feel as if every patient having heart surgery should watch this video.

Many Thanks Kim! Great Job Dr. Doolabh!

I can’t thank Kim enough for sharing his heart valve surgery success with our community! Great job to Dr. Neelan Doolabh and the entire medical team at UT Southwestern for taking such great care of Kim and his family.

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Keep on tickin!
Adam

P.S. For the deaf and hard-of-hearing members of our community, I have provided a written transcript of Kim’s video below.

Good evening. My name is Kim Gray. I’m 67 years old, and tomorrow I, uh, go in for a aortic heart valve replacement. I looked online for some videos for people our age and to kinda go through what it all transpires. So tonight’s the night before. Tomorrow at 7:00 AM I have surgery. I hope to do another video tomorrow to hope shed some light on what to expect, and anticipate and ease tensions when you do these things.

Dr. Neelan Doolabh (UT Southwestern)

I’m expecting good results and, uh, praying for good results and I’ll give you an update tomorrow. Thank you. Good morning. It’s the next morning. Uh, January 28th. My surgery’s at 7:00 AM It’s now 5:00 AM I gotta be the hospital in five minutes. We’re just across the street doing this without a shirt on because you’ll see probably all my body hair removed and I have no penetrations now.

And you might. I’ll see a few later. So anyway, this is video two, day two surgery today in about two hours.

Okay? It’s exactly 12 hours after surgery. And I’m weak ’cause I’ve been in bed, but I have IV here, little oxygen coming in, drainage tube. And, uh, catheter and also blood pressure monitor feel great. Well, no real pain other than drainage to believe it or not. It doesn’t hurt at the incision. It, it hurts when I try to take a deep breath.

So I’m just working on my breathing and hopefully in the morning. Uh, you know, another 12 hours from now, maybe I’ll get the drainage tube out. Anyway, on a scale of one to 10 pain, some pain, pain meds, it’s been around eight or nine, and now it’s down to like three. My voice is weak because I had a breathing tube in my throat.

I bruised my lip a little bit taking it out, but other than that. It’s on a scale of one to 10, I’ve been pretty pleased with where I am. On the pain management. That’s it for now, over and out. Okay. It’s been exactly 24 hours since I’ve had surgery. This will be the last one you see with without a shirt on the rest.

I have shirts but I just wanted to give you an idea of all the penetrations and IVs that you have. We took this one out today, which was just used for, was in a artery so they could take blood out. And then of course, this is just for your oxygen and your temperature. And this guy and this guy are for putting, uh, medicines in that go directly in by your heart and get in your system real rapidly.

So, and then of course I have a catheter and then I have the drainage tube. Which is probably the most uncomfortable thing of all. ’cause it, believe it or not, pain is in your back from the, from the tube. But, uh, other than that, on a scale of one to 10, I am taking pain meds, but I’ve managed the pain, uh, pretty good.

I’d say this morning I’m about a four and, uh, that’s, that’s about it. I’ve already gotten up, brushed my teeth, walked around. And physical therapy will be by here a little bit, and I’ll walk the whole unit and just slowly but surely get my strength back. I’m not in a bed. I will be transferred. This is ICU actually, I’ll be transferred from here to another, uh, department here shortly, and we’ll give you another update, uh, either this afternoon or tomorrow.

So I had my surgery on Tuesday. And all day. Yesterday, Wednesday, I felt great. Blood pressure was low, heart rate was stable, and my heart rate’s always around 50, which is different. But I was always a runner when I was younger. And my heart, my blood pressure was around 117 to 65, something like that yesterday. Ran in that range all day. Beautiful. Then at 2:30 last night, I started getting this atrial fibrillation (AFib) and my heart rate went up to 128. Or actually one time it went up to 140, which is vibrating the bed for me. It is, I’ve never had it that high. Even when I work out, uh, hard on a treadmill or on a bicycle or, or walking.

It never gets that high. So it was really unusual. So it’s given me a setback today. I was supposed to go home today, but they say that AFib is very common with this type of surgery, or it’s common in 50% of the patients. But good news is I’ve got all my tubes out. This is gone. My drainage tubes out, my catheter’s out. So I only have these two for. You know, for medications and whatever, although I am taking some magnesium or something to slow my heart rate down for now, I’ve got some fluid around the heart and we gotta get rid of that. And, uh, so I’ve kind of felt not as good today as the last, as yesterday. I felt fantastic.

But that’s the latest update on day three, and I’m thinking pretty much tomorrow’s gonna be the best day. So I’ll, I’ll feel a lot better tomorrow, and I’ll give you an update then. Okay. Today is day four. I was hoping to go home today, but I, I, again, I had AFib today, uh, this morning pretty bad. My resting heart rate again is 50. It went up to 147 and, uh, Dr. Doolabh said that it’s pretty common, uh, for the first four or five days after surgery. Okay. But once we got it all under control, about 10 o’clock today, I’ve walked four or five times down the hall. I’ve snuck in and taken a shower, moving around. Feeling good today. Feel really good today and am going home tomorrow.

So I’ll give you my last report from home and, uh, and that’ll be it. But so far everything’s out. All the wounds are healing up good and the heart’s good other than the AFib. We just gotta get that regulated and then everything else will be good. And that’s it. Over and out. Okay. Home from the hospital. It’s Sunday. Uh, I didn’t make a video yesterday just ’cause took a shower, cleaned up, just was so relaxed. Didn’t feel like making it to be honest. But today feel great. Um, I’ve got. One little thing that keeps flaring up. My blood pressure goes up late in the evenings, uh, and then early in the morning, and then I take some blood pressure medicine and, uh, about an hour later fell a hundred percent and all day long, low blood pressure.

Walk, walk, walk. I’ve walked like five to 10 minute walks, three or four times a day. And could do more, but just don’t want to stir it up too much. And, uh, anyway, it’s Sunday and had surgery last Tuesday. Uh, I, I think I’ll do one more video. My wounds are healing up. It all good there? Uh, little sore, but not, not anything concerning. But I’ll do my last video on, uh, Tuesday, which will be seven days. So it’ll be day after tomorrow. And then hopefully if everything’s still going good, y’all, I’ve helped somebody. To at least know what to anticipate through the process. That’s it. Thanks. So today’s February 26th, 2025 and it’s my birthday.

I just turned 67 and on January the 28th, I had, uh, uh, surgery and thank the good Lord above. And, uh, also thank Dr. Doolabh and his staff for an incredible job. I had an aortic aortic valve surgery and I am feeling great. I’ve, for example, I’ve ridden my bike for 20 minutes today and walked a mile and, uh, got to do some work around, uh, our farm here. So just, uh, wanna say thanks to everybody and, and, and thanks to God above for being alive and healthy. And I, I feel great. It’s just incredible. Uh, even my movement, uh, where the incision was, is very good. I haven’t started on weights yet, but I hope to do that soon. And uh, again, my thanks to Dr. Doolabh and his staff. They were great.

Fantastic.

Written by Adam Pick
- Patient & Website Founder

Written by Adam Pick - Patient & Website Founder

Adam Pick is a heart valve patient and author of The Patient's Guide To Heart Valve Surgery. In 2006, Adam founded HeartValveSurgery.com to educate and empower patients. This award-winning website has helped over 10 million people fight heart valve disease. Adam has been featured by the American Heart Association and Medical News Today.