Sher's Journal

Update on my recovery: My surgery was April 10th. About 6.5 hr surgery. I was out of surgery and in ICU around 8 pm that night and apparently my family was able to see me at 9 pm. I don't remember anything really until the late afternoon of the 11th. It took quite awhile for me to come to. My breathing tube finally came out the evening of April 11th. My BPs were very soft and oxygen levels really low. They put me on a CPAP machine the evening of the 11th to try and get my oxygen level up (I have a very big appreciation for anyone that needs to use one). I honestly thought it was Monday on Saturday. I was pretty mixed up. I was in ICU for 4 days and then moved into my first cardiac step down room. Unfortunately I got a UTI from the bladder catheter because it just kept backing up. I put on about 25 lbs of edema. I was on pill form of lasix because my surgeon was worried about my BP and oxygen levels. After 2 days of agony for the UTI and the culture to come back, I was finally put on an antibiotic. If you've ever had an UTI and on lasix you know its not much fun peeing (sorry for being so graphic). Once the antibiotics kicked in it was much better.
With edema in my legs, ankles and feet, and low oxygen, walking was difficult for I was determined to move, do my breathing exercises because I knew that was the way to improve. Over the 2 weeks, I was moved to 2 other step down rooms. I was hoping to get out of the hospital in 5 or 6 days not 2 weeks but such is life. Better to be where I was working with physio and respiratory therapists and if something went wrong a team was there to make sure to help. Sleep is hard in the hospital so I was happy when they let me go home with some pretty strict rules to work on walking and breathing exercises.


I've had a hard time doing social media because I am exhausted. More on that on my next post. Progressing slowly but I am progressing. 

Today I had my final labs done and my blood cross and type match band put on for surgery in Thursday April 10 th. First technician was having a problem getting my blood to flow but the second one got it in real quick. A bit of a pin cushion today but I suspect I’ll have a whole lot more pokes on Thursday. It is getting pretty real now and I have to stay busy so that I don’t focus too much of what Thursday will bring. My house is getting spring cleaned by a company tomorrow…I know it’s crazy but I just want to go into surgery knowing my house is really clean . My son gets home from work rotation tomorrow and I am feeling better knowing he will be here too. I hope everyone is starting to get excited about Spring (a renewal as such) and I for one will be happy when this is behind me.

A lot has been going on since I last updated my journal and today I wanted to share where I'm at in my Heart Journey. After Mom and Dad passed in July 2023, I had an enormous amount of work to do as executrix with their estate. I am still working on it but it's now mostly income tax stuff and still paper and photos to go through. I love my Dad but he literally kept everything and I think every income tax he did since the 1940's. Interesting to go through everything but so time consuming and many sad and happy moments while doing so. I decided after Mom and Dads Celebration of Life to start looking into getting a second opinion from my first surgeon. The hard part was believing my heart aneurysm was that much of an issue yet and that I felt so good. There isn't a great system to find another surgeon to get the second opinion. 



After watching a presentation by Dr. Kevin Hodges and Dr. Patrick McCarthy of Northwestern in Chicago I sent a note off to Dr. Hodges for a second opinion. I started the process to fill out the many forms Northwestern required and I sent over my lab data and CTScan and MRI results/pictures. Unfortunately they wanted the actual pictures so I had to go back to our medical system to try and get there admins at Northwestern to have access to the data. They were having a problem with our platforms and were timed out of our system for security reasons. The admins were going to get their IT specialists to access the data but at the time I was just waiting for another CTScan so we were going to wait until that was done so they had the latest information. CTSCan was scheduled for October 2024. I live in Calgary Alberta Canada so going to the US for an opinion and possible surgery I would have to pay for it myself. 


In the meantime, I saw something about the South Health Campus Complex Aorta Program here in Calgary and my husband's vascular surgeon and our friend (we live in the same City and our kids went to school together) Dr. Randy Moore is a team member on the program. I asked my GP since I know Randy to see if she could refer me to the Complex Aorta Program. Only people with complex aorta surgeries are admitted to this program. My husband and I met with Dr. Moore (he's a vascular surgeon that worked on my husbands leg blood clot), Dr. Robert Scott McClure (Cardiac Surgeon), RN, other doctors top talk about by heart issues. They would not let me leave unless I agreed to surgery because of my size and my aorta size. 

This started a a whole bunch of more lab testing, the CTSCan and TEE (Transesophageal Echo). Some interesting things came out of the TEE including a PFO with left to right shunt and a hypermobile septum. So far it looks like the valves are okay and do not need to be fixed.

I do not have my surgery date yet but was told as soon as I have the pre-admission clinic that I would get a call with my surgical date. They originally said surgery late February once pre-admission clearance. The have to give me 14 days notice to stop certain things 14 days prior to surgery. On Monday I have all my surgery labs done and on Tuesday February 11th I was at the pre-admission clinic for the afternoon going over everything, meeting the anethesiologist and nurses etc. What a great anesthesiologist. He took the time to explain everything and answer my bazillion questions. I felt much better after that. Anxiety has been higher but my coach has given me mobility exercises to help with that along with my training program. I still train and lift weights but everything is controlled. If I experience any symptons I have a direct line to call. 

S

Hi, my name is Sher and I discovered Adam's amazing site last year and started to watch the presentations he arranges which have been truly educational and amazing and learning from others to determine my next steps. Today I am taking my first step in moving forward with trying to determine what I should do about Ascending Aortic Aneurysm surgery. This is the start of my journal. I hope I don't bore you but thought I would give you more context about me. I am a mom to one terrific young man and married for 44 years. I turned 66 years old March 2024. If you read my valve story, I haven't made a decision since the surgeon wanted to do elective surgery within 3 months of me seeing him in June 2023.

A lot happened at the time I met the surgeon. My Dad was admitted into the hospital the first of June and I was there everyday taking care of him and going back and forth to the hospital for my Dad and making sure my Mom was okay so was extremely busy. My Dad passed away the evening of June 26th. My Mom hadn't been tracking quite right for a week and I thought it was stress over my Dad. The morning of June 26th I sent my Mom by ambulance to the hospital. I knew my Dad would likely not be alive long so I was running up and down from emergency where Mom was and back up to where Dad was. Mom was admitted to the same floor where Dad was after he passed. I was continuously at the hospital then taking care of my Mom. Mom passed away on July 10, 2023, 14 days after Dad.

I had agreed to a Cardiac CT Scan which took place in July 2023 but just put my heart issues completely on hold with planning Celebrations of Life for my parents for September and all of the hard things like cleaning out their home and setting up estate stuff and their final graveside service. A lot of stuff.

A little bit about me: I had started a health improvement journey in 2015 just before I broke my ankle, which was severe. I had 2 surgeries on my ankle in 2015. I met my coach in 2015 to improve my nutrition, reduce stress and help me learn how to walk again. He started me slowly on resistance training with the emphasis on strengthening the ankle and learn how to walk again. But he was strengthening all areas mind, sleep, stress, eating and physical strength. In March of 2016 I found out I had Breast Cancer and that started a whole new crazy time. Surgery, radiation and now physically trying to strengthen more. My immune system was extremely low so I felt like I was trying to climb out of a very deep hole and my ankle wasn't helping me much. 2016 was pretty much a struggle year but I had a great coach and he worked with me all the way. Any heart issues I had was pretty much not on my radar screen especially since nothing was alarming and me being monitored by my physician and cardiac doctors.

I really increased my resistance training after I retired in 2019. COVID hit in 2020 and since I had a home gym continued to work out and people told me that I should tell more people about my story. I met with the with the head of the NPAA (Natural Physique Athletes Association) and they wanted me to do transformation so that I could show others that you can overcome issues and improve your health. In 2022 did my first competition in the transformation division and then in 2023 bikini and fitness. I tell you this because its important to know that I feel the best I've ever felt, in the best shape of my life, eat nutritionally (still love my chocolate covered jujubes though) and I lift heavy weights and do body weight workouts and I walk alot. I am asymptomatic for heart problems and have great blood pressure and weight is good. But, I am told there is a 2% mortality with surgery versus 7-12% risk of dissection now. I am struggling with the numbers. My Mom was 93years old when she passed. She had congestive heart failure and AFIB. She died of an embolic stroke. She had a Bicuspid Aortic Valve too.

So sorry for the long start to my journal but now you know more about me. I am now thinking about getting second opinions. My coach wants to see if other surgeons will come back with the same prognosis of doing surgery now versus later and believes I would have a great recovery because of my fitness level. Me, I am worried about complications, post strokes, dementia (my Dad), medications (I am medication free and want to stay that way) and ability to travel and compete in the future. I worked for 40 years and was taking care of my parents while I worked and fully after my retirement in 2019. Now I just want to have fun but maybe have to just wait until after surgery.

Are there others that were asymptomatic prior to having surgery? My Ascending Aorta is now 48mm. Did others get second opinions? How did you go about doing that? I am going to reach out to Adam for help on this as there are some doctors that I really resonated with from some of the presentations. How long did it take to getting back to normal life after surgery? Have others gone back to rigorous exercise post surgery? How about medication free? I so appreciate any helpful suggestions as I navigate through this and appreciate all of you! You are heart warriors!