Rob's Journal

Hi friends, I am a little over three months now since my OHS. I am working out again with weights and back to work. Has anybody had the "dizzy" feeling after either working out or working hard and getting a sweat going? not sure this makes sense. But, after a full day of manual labor at work I got extremely light headed for a few hours. Never happened to me pre-OHS. Just curious if any of you have had the same experience? I am sure a lot of this is "normal" post OHS.

Hi all! So, another weird recovery episode. I woke up middle of the night two nights ago (around 2am), and had the worse pain around my heart and chest area going through to my shoulder and partially down my arm. It only hurt when I would inhale and exhale (so all the time :) ). Anyway, got up in the morning and same thing. I called my Cardiologist and he got on the phone right away (we are kind of the rockstars of the hospital when it comes to getting great service). He said sounded like inflammation from the surgery and to take Tylenol and Advil to help with the pain and reduce the inflammation. Long story short, have any of you had this happen weeks, months after the surgery? I am 8 weeks out and am doing great. This scared the poop out of me. Once I noticed relief after a few hours of taking the advil and tylenol I did feel better and my nerves calmed down. I go to work full time in November and have a really physical job. I am worried about all of these little things (weird things) that pop up surgery that they don't tell you about. Which I don't blame them, they can't possibly tell you EVERYTHING that might happen. It would sound like the disclaimer at the end of a Viagra commercial :) Have a great day my friends... Rob

Hello all, I am wondering if any of you after 7 weeks still had a lot of soreness in the rib area where they wired us back up and also in the shoulders and back. For some reason, in the last week I started getting really sore all day. I am sure it is also because I am upping my activities according to my Cardiologist. Thanks to all for the continued support. I appreciate and think of you all daily- especially for those about to go into surgery. Cheers, Rob

Hello My Dear Friends, OK- So one month check in. I will do a video later this weekend and post it up on this site and youtube. Last week at three weeks I had to go in and see the Cardiologist and Surgeon due to the fact that my darn incision is infected. Just the top part of the incision is infected. So, I am on antibiotics for the time being. In all honesty, it is not that bad just more of a pain to take the meds 4 times a day. The pleural effusion is still in my lungs. In actuality, I don't even feel any different with it in there. They said from the x-rays it is just a small amount of fluid. Huge milestone, the doctor said I can drive at 4 weeks. How liberating it was to get behind the wheel. And, at the same time, how scary to think that one bad move and my chest could be in serious jeopardy from an accident. Need less to say, I drove very slow and cautious. I say this all the time, but, THANK YOU to all of the folks on this website. You people have helped guide me through this journey. Stay tuned for an updated video coming soon. I hope you all like them. Cheers, Rob

Hello my friends, I am 21 days post op and feeling good. I definitely have good days and bad days. Sometimes the bad days are really bad and sometimes I just have a hint of an edge to me. I get some weird phantom pains near and around my chest incision. Today, after my nap, I was getting really intense sharp pains to the right of my incision. It was relieved by some short walking. All in all, I am feeling better each day. Small victories to be had. I have to still go in this week and get another chest x-ray to see how the fluid in my chest is doing - I can hear it crackling when I breath right when I get up. So, I am pretty sure it still there. I am getting a ton of exercise so I am entirely not sure how I will get rid of this fluid. In any case, just wanted to give an update. Sleep is going well although I hate sleeping on my back and will try my right side soon. Cheers to all of you and thanks for the support. I will continue to post and keep you all updated. It is therapeutic for me as well.

Finally got my video to update and load so I will share it with you. Got home yesterday and was a little rough (long drive for us from the hospital and i FELT every bump). So QUESTION- I have a little fluid in my lungs and continue to have a low grade fever at nights only. Has anyone else had this problem that could share? Enjoy the video.... I was a little LOOPY. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1PJM51slKc

Doing awesome everybody. They were able to spare my valve and just replaced the root. That is excellent news. I spent one full night in CICU and am in a regular room since yesterday. Breathing tube was pulled out four hours after surgery. Neck catheter was pulled on Saturday and arm catheter as well. The blood work looks great, sugar level look good, oxygen looks good and then I got the chest tubes got pulled out. Overall I feel pretty good. Can' t keep focus for too long, get a little sick to my stomach after some meals, not a ton of appetite, in a little pain. Anyway, i pushed myself today on day three and am feeling kind of poopy tonight. I need to rest tonight and will post a video hopefully tomorrow.

Just had my angiogram yesterday and all my arteries looked great. So, as of now, I am going in on Friday to just have the aortic root replaced. I am in good spirits today. Spent the day with my wife and nieces and nephews yesterday after the angiogram and had a great day. Sleep is a little tough as my mind races but once I am asleep I am usually good. Two days and counting.

Surgery is on Friday. So yesterday I went to have a CT-Scan with dye follow through. I am allergic to the dye so I had to prep with Prednisone. The nurse did not put the IV needle in correctly so when they started the dye contrast all fo the dye went into my arm creating a huge bubble in my arm. My whole arm swelled up and the doctor could not get a good view of my arteries. So now on Tuesday I have to go for a coronary angiogram so that my surgery date does not get pushed out. So bummed cause this should have been good to go now I have to jump through a couple of extra hoops. Just frustrating. Sorry for the rant.

The official two week countdown is on. I met with the anesthesiologists yesterday and spent 4 hours with staff going over all of the pre-op stuff. Kaiser San Francisco has been great so far. I was put a lot more at ease after talking with the RN, PA and Anesthesiologist. I was very fortunate that the anesthesiologist had a great sense of humor, he really put me at ease. Still super scared but by addressing all of the things I am worried about yesterday, the staff calmed with logical answers and statistics.

Had a pretty rough week dealing with the fact that my surgery date is scheduled for August 9th. On one hand I am relieved to have a date and get this thing done. On the other hand, I am a mess emotionally dealing with the reality of this whole thing- sad, mad, terrified. Anyway, I posted another video should you want to tune in- I will keep doing this all the way through my surgery and recovery and everything leading up to the big day. Cheers and hope all are well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iNma3Qg4Ks

I just received my surgery date. I am going in on August 9th. Scared but relieved at the same time. I am glad it is so soon and I don't have to wait months letting that swirl around in my head.

Hi All, thanks to Rose Reed, she pointed out that my title of the video I posted was very hard to find since it was not specific enough. So, I re-titled it and will post it again. Hopefully more folks will be able to find it now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQZXZtotnd0

I am starting to record my journey via Youtube should anybody want to check it out: https://youtu.be/bQZXZtotnd0 I just feel it will be therapeutic for me to do this and hopefully helpful to others. I hope to post weekly up until the surgery and then asked my wife to film throughout the process in the hospital. Much love for finding this amazing community on Heartvalvesurgery.com

Hello All! I met with my surgeon today. We both decided it was time to move forward with the surgery. I feel like I am in good hands with him. The office is calling me on Monday to set up the actual surgery date and we are targeting the first week of August. I feel a little more at ease and definitely in a better mood afterwards. I will keep you all posted. I do believe things are going to move pretty fast in the next few weeks with all the pre-tests- which is a good thing. The less I have time to worry about the better I will feel.

Been a pretty rough go the past few months. In May 2019, my doctor called me out of the blue and said that they were reviewing my CT Scan from 2017 (I still have no idea why they caught this two years later). He said the CT-Scan did not have a dye contrast with it but looked like my Ascending Aortic was around 4.5cm. I then went for a Echocardiogram and it measured around 4.9cm and then finally had a CT scan with dye contrast and it showed that it was actually 5cm. This was all in a matter of months. I have been a mess mentally since I found out. I am now scheduled to meet with the surgeon this week to get a date figured out in the next few months. I have an extremely strenuous job and really can't worry about this everyday I go into work. They also put a lifetime ban in my file (from my doctor) that I cannot lift anything over 50lbs at work and I am on a decent dose of beta blockers which totally mellows me out (I also am a runner and I hate the way it has brought down my runs). Anyway, I will keep you all posted. Thanks for letting me vent.