Sidney's Posts

Awesome news today! My echocardiogram went as well as you could hope for. My ejection fraction shot up to a normal 60% (it was 45% the day of surgery). Did you see the word NORMAL? That is correct, I have made a full recovery. My heart size has continued to shrink and is now 5.8. Normal is 5.6. That is fantastic considering I was over 7 and wearing a defibrillator 18 months ago. I got to see my new heart valve at work on the screen. It is a beautiful thing. Blood pressure spiked this morning from either lack of dinner last night, 5 hours of sleep, no working out for 6 days, off the diet in Charleston over the weekend and weight gain of about 5 pounds. I clean those up and things will really take off. I'm on a ton of BP meds, but Dr. Malanuk feels confident that if I can lose 40 lbs, then I can get off most of them. Thanks everyone for the prayers and checking on me. It means more than you can imagine. Merry Christmas!!

Update for everyone: My blood pressure was really off the charts, Nov. 6-8 it would spike around 180/120. Clonidine is really helping and Dr. Malanuk has me back on Diovan and cutting out the Lisonopril. He also added an extra Norvasc in the morning. Four weeks later, bp at rehab was 110/74 and that night was 115/68. Feel like with the weight loss (7 lbs since 11/6) and new meds, we are now under control. Will keep monitoring and hopefully I can start coming off of the meds. Another strange occurrence is that I'm having small palpitations/flutters from mid-afternoon to evening. They go away when I do anything at all, but working at the computer they are noticeable. Dr. Malanuk put me on a 48 hour halter monitor and was to call me today if anything popped up. I received no call, so assuming it is part of recovery process and moving on. Rehab is going splendidly. They started me slow, but after session #7 today, I'm finally breaking a sweat and getting sore. I go from 10 minutes on a bike to 5 minutes on the hand rowing machine to 12 minutes on the treadmill (3.5 mph with 1 degree of incline) to 3 minutes of steps. Heart rate goes from 65 to mid 90's. My rehab guy assures me that it is going to get much harder and I am ready for that. I would say my energy has definitely increased and I'm only sleeping 6-7 hours before waking up as opposed to the 9-10 before the surgery. After way too long, I'm going to post some synopsis from my stay at Duke and what I would do over prep wise. Friends and family, this may get a little technical and involved as I'm going to update for my HVS guys, so no hard feelings if you unfollow :).