Claire's Posts

I cannot believe it's been FIVE MONTHS since my open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve/repair aortic aneurysm with a graft/repair my aortic root (April 3, 2019). It has been a wild ride, with lots of ups and downs! I have received so much support from my online and in-person heart families as well as from close friends and family, most especially from my husband. He should get an award for his stamina and patience and ability to keep the household running while I continue to recover! Some updates: I graduated in early August from the Ornish Intensive Cardiac Rehab program at UCSD, which was one of the most enriching and transformative experiences of my life! I highly recommend it. I am going back to work full time on Weds., after working part time for the last few weeks to ease back in. Nervous, but ready. I had a CT angiogram last week and my sternum still hasn't healed completely. Frustrating and painful, but I have to just keep moving forward as there is currently nothing to be done about it. If the pain continues after a year they might remove the cables around the sternum. In the next week or two I am going to have a MRI on my brain to see what's causing headaches, short-term memory loss, fatigue and some minor balance issues. Apparently "pump head" caused by being on the heart/lung bypass machine, plus being under the deepest form of anesthesia for so long and the fact that they blast the chest cavity with carbon dioxide can cause some cognitive issues. I am of course hoping there's nothing major to report on that front, and I am told it can take 6 mos to 2 years to recover completely. I am still trying to find my new normal and sorting out my priorities, but I have show a lot of improvement and I am walking between 2-4 miles per day. It's hard to explain how much this surgery impacted my life. I am not the same person I was before, and I am rebuilding the "new me" day by day. Thank you for your support and thoughts and kindnesses along the way. Love, CKB