Kevin's Posts

today is my 1 year anniversary of getting a ring around my mitral valve (I don't remember that verse in the kid's song)!! I went in not too ill, so my recovery was very smooth. By the end of the cardiac rehab (Tufts Melrose), I felt like I was getting in better shape than I had been even before the heart problems. Even so, my recovery was still in progress. At 7 months I was still always ready for a nap. but by 9 months that has passed, and I'm not napping very much. I feel pretty much back to normal. The one thing still lingering - my scar can get irritated. Without a pad on the seat belt, it would get annoyed after an hour driving. I still can't believe I went through that surgery,

6 weeks post-op I continue to be grateful how smoothly my recovery has gone. My walks now include some of the minor hills in my neighborhood. I can get up and down stairs easily. The MAZE procedure seems to be having an effect, I haven't noticed afib or an elevated heart rate for a week or more. It is still uncomfortable to sleep on my side. Surprises: - sneezing or coughing (which I am not doing much of) still hurts. Not as much as it did, but I thought maybe 6 weeks would be a magic number - my chest muscles are sore. I guess this is because I am doing things, but they were sore less often back on week 2 - getting body hair shaved is a recovery all its own. I have a lot of chest hair. At first, my shirt would catch on the regrowing hairs. Now that I am driving, the seat belt aggravates select patches. I think I am almost done with this as it gets longer, but it wasn't something I expected to be a noticeable issue.

today is 4 weeks post-op I'm recovering very well. Up and around and able to do things around the house. showering, dressing, making lunch. Cooking dinner involves things I can't do, like moving big pots around. Picking stuff up off the floor is a challenge, it makes my chest feel stretched (so I mostly don't do that). I can walk a mile on the flat, but going up hills slows me down. One flight of stairs is OK, but 2 flights is a bit much. I'm not desperate for a mid-afternoon nap every day, just every other one. My electrical system is still wonky. I'm going in to afib regularly, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes a few hours. I just had a monitor from my cardiologist for 48 hours, we will see what that shows and what it might mean. He did say the MAZE procedure can take 2 or 3 months to settle in and have full effect. At this point the elevated heart rate from the afib is getting in the way of trying to recover my stamina