Jason's Guestbook

Hi Jason, Prayers and positive thoughts are with you tomorrow as you undergo your surgery. As you know, Dr. Trento is among the best of the best. Between his expertise and your wife the cardiologist, you are in such good hands! Best wishes for an excellent outcome and recovery! Joan

Hi Jason. I think I know what you mean about anxiety. I had mitral regurgitation for years without any symptoms that I was aware of, and I had very little anxiety as I watchfully waited. Then a couple of my numbers changed a bit in the wrong direction and we decided it was time to have the surgery. Wowsers! I discovered reserves of anxiety I never knew I possessed. "You're proposing to get cut open and have an almost perfectly good heart monkeyed around with for no immediate benefit? Why does this seem like a good idea? He's 98% certain he can repair- how come not 100%? What if I'm in the 2%? Should I really have the operation first thing Monday morning - is everyone going to have their heads in the game?" Etc etc - you get the idea. I doubt there's any way to avoid anxiety completely. I found the people on this website, both pre- and post-op, to be very helpful; this is a great community to be part of. I also got a lot of help from listening to guided meditation and relaxation audios. (I'm not a particularly New Age guy, but a certain amount of open-mindedness is helpful if you go this way. Though there is peer- reviewed science behind some of it.) If this helps at all, I'm now extremely glad I had the surgery while I'm otherwise healthy and relatively young (at least in cardiac years). It's made the recovery much easier so far. I'm only 5 weeks post- op so I don't want to get too cocky, but it's been pretty uncomplicated. Anyway, I wish you the best and encourage you to make the most of this website. (For which, if I haven't said so before, thank you, Adam.)

Hi Jason, Great to meet you and welcome to our community! I am very hopeful that the information and the people at this website might help ease your anxiety as you prepare for mitral valve repair surgery. By the way, great job finding Dr. Trento for this procedure. He is a valve guru and a very nice guy. Many patients from our community have had excellent results with him and Cedars. In fact, I recently filmed a video with Dr. Trento about mitral valve repair. If you like, please check it out at http://www.heart-valve-surgery.com/heart-surgery-blog/2014/04/08/advances-mitral-valve-repair-alfredo-trento-md/. If you need anything, please let me know. Keep on tickin! Adam (patient & website founder)