Ben's Posts

Met with one of my surgeons for a 3.5 week post op follow up. I'm healing well and will be cleared for driving in a couple of days. I asked my surgeon what happened. He thinks they might have inadvertently nicked a hole in my native pulmonary valve tract as while harvesting it for transplant into the aortic position. This would have been the source of the bleeding which eventually led to a the abhorrent that caught the cusp of the valve rendering it unusable. I had three surgeons (a fellow which I assumed opened and closed my chest). And I had pediatric cardiac transplant specialist from the Children's Hospital, and an aortic specialist who is also professor from the Medical school. There were a lot of really smart, highly qualified people in that room working on me. Even with that team, it didn't go perfectly. I am disappointed (and so was my surgical team) but I am alive and recovering pretty well, all things considered.

Had a failed Ross procedure about 3 weeks ago. Had some significant bleeding from the right coronary artery, and in a repeated attempts to stop the bleeding they ended up running a suture through a cusp in my valve. They were unable to fix it so they cut it out and ended up giving me a mechanical aortic valve… (And a lifetime subscription to warfarin). I'm kind of frustrated about that. I was a well educated and involved patient, in really good shape, and I feel like my team failed me (but at the same time, they saved my life.) I felt pretty good (although pretty fatigued) before surgery. How long post op does it take to actually feel better than before surgery. I figure about 12 weeks? Right now I'm having buyer's remorse… Any one have some words of wisdom?