{"id":548,"date":"2008-09-02T09:34:11","date_gmt":"2008-09-02T14:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/09\/02\/quirky-aortic-valve-membrane-surgery-for-melissa\/"},"modified":"2019-02-26T22:17:30","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T03:17:30","slug":"quirky-aortic-valve-membrane-surgery-for-melissa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2008\/09\/02\/quirky-aortic-valve-membrane-surgery-for-melissa\/","title":{"rendered":"Quirky Bicuspid Aortic Valve Membrane Surgery For Melissa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here’s an inspiring email from Melissa, a recovering patient from Sydney, Australia. With her approval, I thought you might like to read it:<\/p>\n

Hi Adam,<\/p>\n

I’m emailing from Australia, I’m 34 and I had my open heart surgery 4 months ago (on 14 April to be exact).<\/p>\n

I had a quirky congenital condition that needed to be fixed – the membrane just under my aortic valve was not functioning properly. Plus, my aortic valve is bicuspid and a bit leaky<\/a>. But, the major concern was the membrane. My cardiologist and surgeon – Doctor Alan Farnsworth<\/a>, St Vincent\u2019s Hospital in Sydney \u2013 decided to wait on the aortic valve replacement for now. (To learn more about bicuspid valves, click here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

  <\/p>\n

\"Melissa<\/div>\n
Melissa Johnston – Aortic Valve Membrane Surgery Patient<\/div>\n

  <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My surgery was a complete success. Doctor Farnsworth was able to completely peel the membrane away. Although it wasn\u2019t an actual, structural repair or replacement, the doctors still termed my surgery as \u201cvalve replacement\u201d – even though it was a bit different.<\/p>\n

As for the recovery, I only had a few weeks off work. Then, I worked from home because I could not drive after my heart surgery. I give ALOT of credit to the fantastic team involved in carrying out the surgery (surgeon, anesthesiologist, perfusionist, nurses, etc.) and all the hospital staff in the intensive care unit<\/a> and cardiac ward. They all took great care of me.<\/p>\n

However, I was a bit surprised by the amount of shoulder and neck pain I experienced after the surgery. I am still really sore in my neck and around my collar bone area<\/a>. I\u2019ll discuss that with my cardiologist next week when I have my next echocardiogram and check-up. I think I really need a massage!<\/p>\n

Needless to say, I am so immensely proud of myself for getting through all this. You can have the greatest medical teams and support group, but I believe it still comes down to the individual and the attitude you have specific to the operation and the recovery.<\/p>\n

I too wanted to let you know how grateful I was\/am for your website.<\/p>\n

Kindest regards,<\/p>\n

Melissa Johnston<\/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":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bicuspid-aortic-valve"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548","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=548"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}