{"id":364,"date":"2008-03-25T22:11:48","date_gmt":"2008-03-26T03:11:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/03\/25\/at-83-years-young-john-defalco-is-bored-with-his-recovery\/"},"modified":"2025-05-13T17:49:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-13T22:49:17","slug":"at-83-years-young-john-defalco-is-bored-with-his-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/03\/25\/at-83-years-young-john-defalco-is-bored-with-his-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"At 83 Years Young, John DeFalco Is &#8220;Bored&#8221; With His Recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Given my recent blog about heart valve surgery in patients over eighty, I thought you might like to read about John DeFalco from Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n<p>His daughter, Coreen writes to me:<\/p>\n<p>My father, John DeFalco, is 83 years old. Due to his age, our doctors told us he was at high risk for surgical <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-valve-replacement-surgery.php\">aortic valve replacement surgery<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/dunne.gif\" alt=\"John DeFalco, Eighty Three Year Old Heart Surgery Patient Success Story\" width=\"350\" height=\"300\" \/><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the good news&#8230; It&#8217;s two weeks after surgery and Dad has far surpassed everybody&#8217;s expectations! Dad left the hospital eight days after surgery. At home, he has received care from nurses several times a week. Dad has also been seeing a physical therapist.<\/p>\n<p>As his prime support group, my two sisters and I, along with my mother, were very active in helping him recuperate. John will see the surgeon tomorrow for his follow-up visit and is looking to get permission to start driving again. He says he is bored sitting around!<\/p>\n<p>We were amazed that he had no major <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-valve-surgery-complications.php\">pain complications following surgery<\/a>. In fact, he was off all pain meds prior to leaving the hospital. All in all, he was very lucky and is looking forward to resuming his daily activities.<\/p>\n<p>FYI, Dr. Derek Muerke (pictured below) at Flagler Hospital was our surgeon. We were so impressed with the job he did and the follow-up care my father received after the surgery. I highly recommend this surgeon. In fact, I will be transferring my care to the cardiologists at Flagler Hospital in the event I need such a procedure in the future. I wouldn&#8217;t want to be anywhere else.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/derek-muehrcke.gif\" alt=\"Dr. Derek Muehrcke\" width=\"96\" height=\"132\" \/><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: center;\">Dr. Derek Muerke<\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Adam&#8230; Thanks again for your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/adam-pick-book-2016-35.php\">heart valve surgery book<\/a>. Your rather frank description of your surgical experience really helped me understand what was happening throughout this ordeal. I wish you the very best of luck and health in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Related Links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2009\/10\/23\/heart-valve-replacement-pacemaker-implant-surgery-coumadin\/\">Connie, 85, Keeps Walking After Heart Valve &amp; Pacemaker Surgery<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Sincerely,<\/p>\n<p>Coreene<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-patient-stories"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=364"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41262,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/364\/revisions\/41262"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}