Deirdre's Profile

This is my first time posting my mitral valve surgery story and I apologize for what will be a long post. I had minimally invasive mitral valve repair surgery on January 8, 2025 in Fort Worth, Texas at Baylor Scott and White Hospital. My cardiologist is Dr. Sam Nassar, my Interventional Cardiologist is Dr. Scott Ewing, and my surgeon was Dr. Jeffrey Wu. At 73, I had always been quite healthy, height and weight proportional with no chronic diseases, and no diagnosed heart disease in my family history. In retrospect, my first sign of anything out of the ordinary was that for maybe 2 or 3 years, I had noticed that I would occasionally feel a flip-flop sensation in my chest. There was no pain, and it only lasted a fraction of a second. As I was in the habit of going to my doctor at least yearly, I assumed that if I had an irregular heartbeat the doctor would hear it, so I never thought to mention it. One evening in June of 2024 I had several episodes of heart racing, feeling like it was trying to beat itself out of my chest. However I had no other symptoms, no pain, dizziness, blood oxygen at normal levels, and BP only mildly elevated. My husband suggested we get a good night’s sleep and if it happened again the next day we would go to the ER. The next day was normal, and I had no repeat of the elevated heart rate for two months…until it happened again in August. My PCP referred me to a cardiologist, Dr. Nassar, and I wore a heart monitor for a month, during which time it didn’t happen once. Up to this point my husband was the only one who knew what was going on. I felt confident that I had nothing seriously wrong, and I didn’t want to worry my children or grandchildren over nothing. However, an echocardiogram in October showed that I had severe mitral regurgitation and Dr. Nassar wanted to see me the next day. At that appointment he informed me that I would need to have open heart surgery to repair or replace the valve, but there was no need to rush into it, since my heart had not had any damage and was in great shape, outside of the mitral valve. At some point he also mentioned AFib, but I don’t remember him saying much else about it. He did want a better look at my heart though, so a transesophogeal echocardiogram (TEE) was ordered. All of this hit me like a ton of bricks, since I had never had health issues that were any more than annoying…nothing potentially life threatening. The TEE changed Dr. Nassar’s opinion. He wanted the surgery scheduled as soon as possible. I had a heart catheterization procedure to see if I had any coronary artery blockages and CT scans of upper and lower torso to see if there were calcium plaque buildups in those arteries. These were all negative, thankfully, so I was a good candidate for a minimally invasive procedure. It was scheduled for January 8th, 2025. My surgery was on a Wednesday, was successful and I was progressing well in the ICU. I expected to be home in 5 days max, but Dr. Wu said plan on a week at the outside. However, on Friday night I felt an odd sensation as though a wave was washing over me, starting at my feet and continuing up my body. There was no pain, feeling faint, etc., and it was over almost as quickly as it had started, but it happened again about 15 minutes later. Then nurses rushed in with a cart, hooked me up to an EKG, and said my heart had stopped twice. I was amazed since what I felt was so fleeting. The next night, I felt lightheaded for a few seconds, and that also repeated a few minutes later. In the morning nurses asked me if I had felt anything unusual during the night, and told me my heart rate had slowed to 29 BPM. They were clearly concerned and said I might start hearing talk of needing a pacemaker. What? First open heart surgery, and now maybe a pacemaker? A few hours later I was visited by Dr. Scott Ewing, an Interventional Cardiologist, who explained that my heart was probably just reacting to the recent surgery, and he didn’t think I would need a pacemaker. That night about 3 a.m. I felt the washing-over-me sensation again, lasting a bit longer this time. About 15 seconds later I felt it again. This time nurses rushed in and said they were hooking me up to an external pacemaker and calling Drs. Wu and Ewing to ask what they wanted to do. By 6 a.m. (this was Monday) I was being taken to the OR for a temporary pacemaker placement (going through the groin) and my husband was on his way so he could sign all the consents necessary. Since I was still on prescription pain meds I couldn’t sign for myself. And before we even got to the OR, Dr. Ewing said I was scheduled for my permanent pacemaker placement surgery that afternoon at 2:30. All seemed to go well with the placement, but that evening Dr. Ewing suspected a new issue, and an early morning chest X-ray on Tuesday confirmed that the upper lobe of my left lung was collapsing. It had been nicked when he was threading one of the leads into my heart, a known possibility especially with smaller framed people with very little space for the wire leads to go through. That required a tube (called a pigtail because of its spiral shape) to be inserted into my left side to drain air and fluid that was leaking outside the lung. This procedure was done in my room. By then I had been in the ICU for a week and was very ready to get out. But another chest X-ray on Wednesday showed I had too much fluid in my right lung, necessitating another procedure also done in my room to drain 500 cc’s out. I was promised that if I had no other complications I could move to a step down unit on Thursday and discharged on Friday, which is what happened. I have recovered quite well and can do everything now that I was able to do before my surgery. My heart pumps at the exact same percent efficiency it did before my surgery, which Dr. Nassar said was unusual, so I am very pleased about that. The care I received from all doctors and staff was wonderful. I am so thankful for many things…among them the technology which now allows for minimally invasive surgery and pacemaker placement. I am also very thankful that my heart didn’t wait until after I got home to stop/start the way it did, since I’m sure I would have just written it off as part of the healing process. I could have been home and lost consciousness, fallen and seriously injured myself since I wouldn’t have known what was actually happening. Now I get to go on with my life as before, with very few adjustments for my pacemaker. ❤️❤️❤️