A
andrew
Happy July 4th!
I'm writing this from a hotel room after being discharged from Mass General yesterday...hard to believe as the surgery was in the "future" for so long.i have been reading the forums for the last year or so and have found so many of the threads so very helpful and informative. it's so lucky - when i know no one personally who has gone through this - to have a forum such as this. thank you for all the insightful comments and useful links.
i found out about a 1.25 years ago that a childhood heart murmur was not so benign but rather had a bicuspid valve with an ascending aortic aneurysm of approx 50mm. I'm 45 and had no symptoms. i consulted various doctors and most recommended waiting until 55mm but evidence of what is the right timing is very hard. they can't very well take 10,000 folks with aneurysms, note their various characteristics (bav or not, etc.) and sit back and just wait to see what happens, noting at what size each individual dissected. thus there is a certain element of guesswork. as a parent, having the realistic notion that i could drop dead (G-D forbid) as any moment was a heavy weight to carry around, one whose weight i'm only recently comprehending in the post surgical period.
last week i had the valve replaced with a Carpentier-Edwards Bovine Pericardium and the ascending aorta replaced with a graft by Dr. Hilgenberg at Mass General. Mass General was excellent. my decision to move forward on the timing was partially spurred by a link on these forums to a presentation by Dr. Isselbacher concerning the timing of dissection in those with Bav's. it also led me to mass gen it self so thanks forum folks.
i'm am generally pleased with the progress of my surgery but am having a few somewhat puzzling post surgery issues.
first, everything tastes weird or bad or metallic. I'll take a bite of something and it tastes ok but then a second later just off or bad. my wife will verify it's my perception rather than the food. I've had a bit of a sore throat that is only starting to abate (from the breathing time and an intra operative TEE) but I'm not sure how that could affect it. Have others had problems with how things taste post surgery? how long did it last?
second - driving me crazy - when i lie down at night i feel/hear the beating of my heart in my ears very loudly. it feels like the deep reverberation of a bass drum or a bass guitar and makes me very headachy. it started while in the hospital and i was initially afraid it was somehow connected to a bp change, an acceleration of my heart rate or an an arrhythmia and that thankfully does not seem to be the case. but it's as if my ears are connected to my heart and in addition to the distraction, my heart "sounds" too fast and too loud to me which is distressing. has anyone else had anything like this?
Happy 4th,
Andrew
I'm writing this from a hotel room after being discharged from Mass General yesterday...hard to believe as the surgery was in the "future" for so long.i have been reading the forums for the last year or so and have found so many of the threads so very helpful and informative. it's so lucky - when i know no one personally who has gone through this - to have a forum such as this. thank you for all the insightful comments and useful links.
i found out about a 1.25 years ago that a childhood heart murmur was not so benign but rather had a bicuspid valve with an ascending aortic aneurysm of approx 50mm. I'm 45 and had no symptoms. i consulted various doctors and most recommended waiting until 55mm but evidence of what is the right timing is very hard. they can't very well take 10,000 folks with aneurysms, note their various characteristics (bav or not, etc.) and sit back and just wait to see what happens, noting at what size each individual dissected. thus there is a certain element of guesswork. as a parent, having the realistic notion that i could drop dead (G-D forbid) as any moment was a heavy weight to carry around, one whose weight i'm only recently comprehending in the post surgical period.
last week i had the valve replaced with a Carpentier-Edwards Bovine Pericardium and the ascending aorta replaced with a graft by Dr. Hilgenberg at Mass General. Mass General was excellent. my decision to move forward on the timing was partially spurred by a link on these forums to a presentation by Dr. Isselbacher concerning the timing of dissection in those with Bav's. it also led me to mass gen it self so thanks forum folks.
i'm am generally pleased with the progress of my surgery but am having a few somewhat puzzling post surgery issues.
first, everything tastes weird or bad or metallic. I'll take a bite of something and it tastes ok but then a second later just off or bad. my wife will verify it's my perception rather than the food. I've had a bit of a sore throat that is only starting to abate (from the breathing time and an intra operative TEE) but I'm not sure how that could affect it. Have others had problems with how things taste post surgery? how long did it last?
second - driving me crazy - when i lie down at night i feel/hear the beating of my heart in my ears very loudly. it feels like the deep reverberation of a bass drum or a bass guitar and makes me very headachy. it started while in the hospital and i was initially afraid it was somehow connected to a bp change, an acceleration of my heart rate or an an arrhythmia and that thankfully does not seem to be the case. but it's as if my ears are connected to my heart and in addition to the distraction, my heart "sounds" too fast and too loud to me which is distressing. has anyone else had anything like this?
Happy 4th,
Andrew
