Tom's Posts

Hello everyone. I had AVR April 13 and am struggling with fatigue. Dr. Castro did a partial sternotomy) and had a perfect technical outcome and excellent recovery. I went back to work June 15th (I felt fine but didn't have the energy to work a full time job before that). I wonder what others have experienced fatigue. I sometimes go home from work and sleep for 1-2 hours before dinner. This is frustratingly similar to what was happening before my AVR. I am healthy and exercising (weights and stair-climber). Is it because I am 58 yrs. old or somehow part of my longer-term recovery from OHS? God bless you all! Tom Fitzmorris, Palo Alto, CA

I have posted here earlier about the mystery of having had my sense of taste —and sense of smell—totally disrupted. Until one week ago I could not tolerate any strong smells nor any foods with any type of spicyness, or garlic etc. I had the taste buds of a four year old. I wondered if it was the pain medication, i.e. Tramadol or other meds, but my cardiologist said these meds are not known for causing such problems. I have heard the anti-biotics can cause distaste but did not believe that I had been on any antibiotics. Well yesterday my wife drove me to my one month follow up visit to see my surgeon, Dr. Castro, at Sequoia Hospital in Redwood City, California. What I was surprised to learn was that (of course) I had in fact been given antibiotics—intraoperatively. He has his anesthesiologists administer vancomycin and Ancef (cefazolin) during all his heart surgeries. He says that without antibiotics the risk of patient infection from open heart bypass surgery would be significant. His patients rarely if ever get infections. Dr. Castro explained that these drugs vastly disrupt bacteria ("Flora") in the body and that includes bacteria that naturally occur in the mouth, so it is not surprising that this would disrupt one's sense of taste. Fortunately, and consistent with what fellow heart valve surgery patients have reported, now at four weeks post-surgery the worst is past; food sometimes merely tastes flat or non-tasty, but for the most part no longer tastes awful or unappealing. ITEM 2: EXERCISE. "Whoa big fella." A couple of weeks ago I was already walking up to an hour at a time and wanted to know what I could safely do to increase my exercise tolerance. My cardiologist said that if I wanted to, I could use a stair-climber machine at the gym. So over the past week I have started doing this; two days ago I stair-climbed for 30 minutes at an intensity level so that my heart rate was at 140. Yesterday I felt a bit funky and during my wife and my visit to Dr. Castro, my heart surgeon, he said that I should really keep my heart rate down at about 115 for the next several weeks, just to be cautious and let the heart more fully heal. After all with bypass they make a small incision in the atrium and insert the bypass tube, and another one in the ascending aorta downstream from where they replaced the aortic valve. All these spots are sutured back to close the wounds and therefore need time to heal. My patient logbook from the hospital lists goals for how much daily walking the patient should strive for. In my case, my wife Jennifer quipped that these should be the maximum I do rather than the minimum, which is how, in my typical over-zealous fashion, I have approached my recovery task. Today is May 13, my one month surgery anniversary. When I awoke after a blessed full night of sleep, I found myself in a low mood (I am not good with mornings). Rather than subject Jennifer to this, I threw myself out of the house to get some exercise, which usually cures the blues --I think we all find. I observed my anniversary by doing a walk around the very popular Stanford Radar Dish in the Stanford foothills here in Palo Alto. The circuit took 1 hour 10 minutes and it was a nice cool morning and the grass is still partly green (we have had a very cool April this year). So it was a nice way to mark the one month milestone. After lunch I slept for 2 hours, so while I am doing great I don't imagine that I could work a full day yet. Dr. Castro says that the healing progress accelerates, so I look forward to being vastly stronger in a couple of weeks. Who knows, maybe a beer or glass of wine will even taste good by then! Then I will know that I am healed.