Dale's Journal

Ben Hyman  I'm having robotic mitral repair at Mayo Rochester in March. There have been many debates on the merits of robotic vs open (with sternotomy aka "cracking the chest") The benefits include faster discharge from the hospital (3 days vs 7-8) and faster recovery (3-4 weeks vs 2-3 months) The downsides include greater risk of stroke and potentially more pain. Also not everyone is a candidate for robotic. Morbidly obese patients, extremely thin patients or those with multiple problems have to have open procedure. Also only a handful of centers and surgeons have enough experience with robotics to be succesful at it. Fortunately I'm an ideal candidate as I'm healthy other than my valve issue, and Mayo is a pioneer in robotic mitral valve repair center as they have done almost 1000 robotic procedures on top of the many thousands of standard procedures they have done sucessfully. That's why I chose them. Do your homework and meet with at least 2-3 surgeons at different centers before going under the knife. There are many patients on this site that have had a succesful robotic mitral repair. Do your homework. It is still major surgery that will require significant downtime and support for a full recovery. Best of luck on your journey

Darlene Smith  I decided to go with traditional open surgery, and my pain seems to have been much less than some of the folks who had the robotic because the robotic has to cut through so much more tissue and muscle. I was back to work at 6 weeks post op and I was completely off the narcotic pain meds by the time I left the hospital.