Alexa's Heart Valve Journal

Hi everyone! Please keep my best friend's little brother in your prayers today, he's having open heart surgery in the morning. Thank you <3

Does anyone have any tips on how to not scratch my scar? I'm almost 3 months post-op and my scar itches so bad. I put "scar away" on it every day but sometimes it itches so bad that I can't help but pat it or blow on it to make the itching stop. Is there any other creams or vitamins I should put on it that will reduce the itching but will also help it not form a keloid? (my scar is red and raising which I would fear would happen)

Scar appreciation update (7 weeks post-op) : tried to post this before but on the right is my old scar and the photo on the left is my new scar

Hi everyone, I have a question about incision site pain. Recently I've been having really bad pain in my chest when I wake up. I'm a side/stomach sleeper so I'm sure that doesn't help the pain, but I was wondering if anyone else experienced this kind of pain. It's like a tightness/stabbing pain but once I take a Tylenol it goes away.




Also, I have a very best friend of mine who just had a bone marrow transplant and is now back in the hosptial with a fever. It would mean a lot to me if you could keep her in your thoughts and prayers. Thank you ❤️

Hi everyone! It's almost been 2 weeks since my surgery and I have never seen myself recover so fast before. The first time (4 years ago) it took me about 3 weeks to finally start to feel ok again but this time I'm so eager to get out there! I was discharged after 5 days in the hospital which is a polar opposite of the first time (15 days). My heart rate is fast at times when I'm relaxing; over 90bpm which is a little high. I have a cardiologist appointment tomorrow for a check-up so we'll see what they say. Also, not sure if this happened to anyone else post-op, but I'm getting a lot of paplitations lately which is leading me to think it's a-fib (praying to God it's not). I'm going up and down 2 flights of stairs every day with little complication which is improving, and I'm very energetic as to opposed the first time. It seems almost unreal how fast I've been healing and I'm so excited to get my life back together soon!

Hello everyone, currently writing from the ICU at Mt Sinai and I am 2 days post Op!! Dr. Stelzer said my heart looks amazing now and that both valves were replaced. They took out my breathing tube yesterday morning and I already got up and sat I the chair yesterday! They said I could be moved up to a regular room as early as today which is so exciting! I also heard my heart beat and I couldn't believe how different it sounded it brought me to tears lol! I'm getting stronger every day and I couldn't be more thankful for the support team I have with me it makes me feel like the luckiest girl on this planet!

Here we go, I'll be waking up at 4:00am to be at the hospital for 5:30. I'm very nervous as it's finally settling in. I know I'm in great hands with the medical team at Mt. Sinai, and I look forward to updating everyone soon!

Went to see Dr. Stelzer today to talk about optional dates for surgery and turns out I will be having my surgery done this Friday, which also happens to be one day after my birthday. So I guess you can say I'm getting the gift of life for my 20th haha.

I used to never get migraines, they only came persistent when I started college. However, recently I find myself having aurora migraines 3 times a month. I'm not sure if this is cardiac related but it's something that just started happening along with constant paplitations.

Today was nothing new with me except for the fact that I had non-stop palpitations all day long. When I was at work, or even just hanging out on my couch I would get paplitarions for no reason. I'm no newbie to paplitations, I've had them ever since my surgery, but today was the first time I've had them all day long. Probably going to call my cardiologist in the morning. Never expirenced anything like this that's not stress related.