Louise's Journal

See Adam's blog to see three happy heart valve surgery community members meeting for the first time six months post op. It was so exciting to meet in person and share our stories and news. Adam, you have created a wonderful place of education and friendship for us all and we're going to stay right here and keep on ticking and smiling too! Thank you!

Hi Fellow Warriors, I'm happy to say my three month follow up visit at Cleveland Clinic post mitral valve replacement ( porcine) and tricuspid valve repair went beautifully. ECHO and EKG and bloodwork all normal and new valve functioning perfectly. Next visit in one year.
I did go into Afib once home post surgery but that's not uncommon and a cardioversion snapped me back into sinus rhythm. It worried me to no end at the time because you hope that you'll just cruise into recovery and no one wants their heart to have a hissy-fit but we warriors have strong hearts! My EF is 63% and I'm doing the course in cardio rehab at a local hospital center. It's great and will give me the confidence I need to know I'm neither doing too little or too much. I never felt tired or bad so it's somewhat strange to think I need to slowly retrain my heart into condition. I now have the connection with that at rehab since they monitor you the whole time, test your BP mid exercise and more. There's one large monitor on a wall that shows the running EKG of the six of us and each persons rhythm is so vastly different, so unique, it's an eye opener!