Cory's Journal

Its been 8 days since surgery and everything is going great. This valve is not leaking at all and I feel a lot better than I have for the last 13 months. I still have a long way to go to get my stamina back but as of right now everything is great my INR levels are almost at the level prescribed. I will be starting cardiac rehab on Friday. I still have a pain in my lower left shoulder blade but the doctor said that it should get better, hopefully it clears up soon. It hurts mainly at night while I am trying to sleep. But other than that all is great. Good luck to Everyone going through surgery. Cory E.

Well got out of ICU this morning all is going well. Still trying to get blood pressure down but feeling pretty good. Went on 3 short walks today not to bad but still a little weak. Thanks for all the well wishes from everyone.looking forward to recovering and getting back to normal. Cory

Cory is doing good all tubes are taken out except the drainage . We are going to see him now and I will give a update little bit. His blood pressure was up last night bit but they were trying to get that done when we left last night, so we will see what it is this morning when we get over there . Thanks for everyone praying for him. They took a echo in surgury and everything looked good and nothing leaking. Alright happy news!

Well had my meeting with my surgeon and he is recommending that i go with a mechanical heart valve. he also explained why he recommends this for me, basically he stated that each heart surgery would get tougher to and would be of higher risk each time and each one would take longer to recuperate from. So i am more than likely to go with the mechanical valve and hope that the surgeon can secure this valve so that a leak does not happen again. So my question is for all that are taking coumadin, what is or has been the biggest challenge for you while taking coumadin? Has anyone had an allergic reaction to coumadin and if so what would the alternative medicine used be? Thanks in Advance for any info that you can share :) Cory

Well i had my 1st annual check up on Thursday last week. The news wasn\'t what i wanted to hear. I found out that my valve is leaking quite a bit more than it should. My annulus that they stitched the valve into was deformed and was very difficult to sew into place. At the time the leakage was minimal and was thought that it would be ok. On Friday i had a TEE to get a better look at the valve. from this procedure they were able to tell that the valve was ok but the leak was coming around the valve. they said that the valve is leaking around about 25% on the valve (Not good). So this will be the 2nd surgery for the valve, I would like to ask the group here there thoughts on Mechanical vs Tissue? The biggest concern that i have about mechanical is the coumadin and the side effects. Are there any Mechanical valves out there that require low dose coumadin? If they cannot guarantee that they can get the new valve installed without the potential for leaking again and having to go thorough this again then i will definitely go with a tissue valve again. As of right now i am scheduled for surgery for 12-27. lot happening in a short amount of time - annual checkup on the 8th then surgery 19 days later.

Well went back to work today. No issues other than trying to get back up to speed :). My Recovery was very uneventful and surprisingly easy. There were a few minor issues, the 1st was that my hemoglobin levels went down to 8.9 my normal was around 14 and now in at 13. I found out that if a cough catches you off guard (heart pillow not at hand) it can be quite painful, luckily this only happened to me 2 times. The hardest part of the recovery for me was finding something that i could do, i did play some games on the xbox and that definitely will kill some time, i think that i spent way to much time doing this. I finished up my cardiac rehab last Wednesday, this was a very good feeling knowing that i am getting close to being back to where i was if not beyond before surgery. The only other thing that caused me concern during my recovery at home was the 1st or 2nd night at home i woke up and checked my heart rate and it was around 38 BPM, i checked it 3 or 4 times and each time it was the same. after about 1/2 hour it did go back up to the mid 50\'s but i\'ve never had it go that low since at least not that i noticed. My blood pressure actually decreased slightly after surgery an now my resting BP is around 90/50 which i\'m told is good. One other item that i have noticed is my vision sometimes gives me a feeling that i am getting a migraine (which doesn\'t happen :) this usually only lasts a few minutes and returns to normal. Eye doctor thinks that it is just my eyes adjusting to having a larger volume of blood flow and that the body will adjust itself through time. To everyone that will be having this surgery done good luck, I feel that it is not that bad of a surgery to have done, which is good because i will need to have it done again in 15 to 20 years hopefully.

Cory is doing good he gets tired just walking up a flight of steps.He has started walking on the treadmill couple of days now. Tomorrow he will start his cardiac therapy about 6 weeks so he has something to look forward of getting out of the house.We went to the doctor on Tuesday his hemoglobin was pretty low and now he is anemic,when we went in he was 8.9 when it should be in the range of 12-14, so the doctor put him on 325mg twice a day of iron for 60 days and to come back in 3 weeks. We have the next appointment at the mayo Dec 23rd with the cardiologist to see how he is doing and then to do a another echo and EKG.We will update soon when we go to mayo. Thanks for thinking of Cory.

well its was last Friday i checked in for Aortic valve replacement. wish i could say there was no pain or discomfort, but that would be a lie although it has not been bad. I don\'t remember to much in the recovery room, i do remember seeing the wife and kids and other family members and the fun of having the breathing tube removed(barely) and the night of continuously wanting to have ice chips (very dry mouth). needless to say that 1st night was more of a blur than anything specific. The next few days in the step down unit were about getting moving and breathing and trying to find a comfortable position to sleep in(I usually fall asleep on my stomach) so when i finally was able to lay on my right side, i was able to sleep a lot better. My appitite has been coming back and is now back to about normal. My weight has returned to were it was before surgery. For now life is good :). I do have one thing that i will need to watch though and that is my pulse. while in the hospital my pulse stayed right around 70 bpm day or night (after pacemaker removed) now at home i have found my heart rate to vary from 40 - 68 BPM (actually i have only found my heart rate at 38 BPM 1 time other wise the lowest i usually see it is around 60BPM). Before surgery my resting heart rate was in the mid to upper 40\'s. A question ? after surgery is it normal to hear/feel your heart beat in your ears? not painful just annoying when you are trying to sleep. (I have a tissues valve not mechanical, so not a click that one might hear if mechanical valve was installed)

I picked Cory up tonight yeah whoo! Only 4 days in the hospital. He is doing great. Taking Tylenol and one pain pill before bed. This is so amazing! Little tired but he has days to rest. When he coughs it hurt a little. Walking will be his thing for while he needs to walk! He has some cardiac exercise to do next week for a week. Then he will need a 1 month check up.

Cory is doing great he is so tired today more then any other day. They pulled the chest tubes out today and took Iv out of his neck,and all the Iv\'s. They are giving him pain meds no more IV\'s medicine for pain. Walking today little more. I hope he can sleep little better tonight he hasn\'t much the last few nights. That mayo hospital is just the fantastic. It amazing where he is today from just 2 days ago. He is off everything. He will come home on Tuesday. Thanks everyone for keeping him in your prayers he did and I bet he is glad it\'s over. The waiting and waiting is the longest thing to do.

Cory is doing great most of the Iv\'s are out one tube is still in he has been sitting in a chair for awhile and he will be walking this afternoon.Thanks everyone who keep him in your prayers at this time.

cory is doing well with lots of pain Meds he got out of surgery at 6:30 last night seen him around 9:00. It took a little longer to do the surgery as they did the less invasive way 8 cm incision, with a tissue valve a cow valve. Now he can graze the fields as we pass the cows in the pastures:) They fixed the Ascending Aorta, and fixed the Aortic Valve he had alot of work done. The breathing tube is out. breathing on own is very good. He wants water so bad. Sugar were a little high but I guess this is common after the surgery. Thanks for keeping us in your prayers as Cory process to a great recovery and can go home this next week.

I made it to Rochester, staying across the street from the hospital tonight. I am scheduled to check in for surgery at 9 AM. guessing my surgery probably after lunch sometime. My wife will be updating my journal as information becomes available. As for the valve type (tissue/mechanical) i have decided to go with a tissues valve. there are to many unknowns as for the new bloodthinners replacement meds that are supposed to be out in a couple of years. There are other personal reasons that i do not want to take coumadin. Thanks to all for answering questions that i may have asked and Thank you Adam for setting this site up it was a very nice resource to have.

how time seems to slip by. it seems like just yesterday i was told by my cardiologist that i will need to have surgery. the days have seemed to just fly by, its all kind of a blur. to everyone that is having surgery this week and in the future i wish you all a speedy recovery.

next friday is surgery hard to believe it is coming so quickly. Each day seems to be flying by, guess i have been working on keeping my mind off of it. Question for every one that has had heart surgery, is there anything that i should be doing to prepare for this surgery (physically/mentally)? what would be the most important word of advice you could give someone that will be having valve surgery? Thanks in advance to everyone that leave a comment.

Well its been a week since i was at Mayo to have more tests done and meet the surgeon. I have found out that there will be a couple of other things done to the heart while they are in there. My bicuspid aortic valve will be changed out. the mean gradient across the valve is 60 mmhg with an opening of .85 cm2 this valve has no leakage while the others do leak a little, go figure. the next item that will be worked on is the ascending aorta has dilated and will be replaced/repaired. according to the surgeon it will more than likely be replaced. And the final item that they found during the echo was that i have a tiny hole in the heart, normally they would not have done anything with it except that i get migraine headaches and there may be a link between the two. Dr Schaff and everyone that i went to at mayo were outstanding. 22 days till surgery everything is looking good :)

Has anyone done any research on the new blood thinners coming out I n soon? My surgeon said that they should be out in the next 2 to 3 years. From the info I have found so far it doesn\'t sound like trials have started for replacing cumadine yet. I have about 27 days to decide which valve type to go with. As of right now I am still leaning towards a tissue valve. Thanks for any input you may have

I will be going to Mayo in Rochester, Mn tomorrow for some more tests and then will meet with Dr. Schaff on Friday to go over my surgery and QA. this should be a fun couple of days :)