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Garden of Hope and Love Garden of Hope and Love Heart Of The Sunrise, As I was being readied for surgery, I put myself into a peaceful scene that I had created and meditated on over a period of several weeks. My favorite garden on our farm is called Bug City and its most magical moment...

Lots of good advice, Michelle. Thanks! After a good summer in rehab I really backslid in Sept/Oct when my family was consumed with the death of a dear cousin at age 47 of breast cancer. We were with her the evening she died and I have never seen such anguish. I kept thinking of my brother...

Thanks for the responses. I was glad to read of similar experiences and good outcomes. I was on a Holter monitor for 48 hours and had more episodes of arrhythmia. I am doing a 24-hour repeat to see if a week on Metropolol has made any difference but I will probably need an ablation. I'm...

I am celebrating my 9-months' anniversary post AVR in a Holter monitor following a rapid increase in heart rate, from 98 to 152 in a split second, while on a treadmill at my gym. No interval rates were recorded. I had just spent 40 minutes in a warm water therapy pool working on chronic...

Bill, I have been anxiously watching for your return and am so glad all went well and you are fine with the outcome of surgery. I am curious to know if the procedure took the 12 hours' time that was anticipated. How many days were you at Hopkins? Although I follow a lot of cases here, yours...

Bill, how did your pre-surgery visit go today? I read about Dr. Conte on the Hopkins website and was so impressed by his training and specialties. Pat

Hi Bill, I don't have any information about pseudo-aneurysms but can tell you that I was an AVR patient earlier this year at Hopkins. My surgeon, Duke Cameron, is masterful and so humane. When I had my pre-op visit a big concern was being intubated because years ago my uvula was damaged when...

My upper body aches and pains lasted for 12 weeks until the end of sternal precautions. Have you found a comfortable sleeping position? I slept sitting up for 39 nights, by which time I developed coccyx pain; that was enough incentive to force myself to recline and the pain did not resume. I...

Julian, you sound so confident and ready! Your surgery is on the 6-month anniversary of my aortic valve replacement. I brought a big tablet to the hospital and wrote about my impressions constantly. It was really interesting afterwards to read what my perceptions were and see how my notes...

I was off all heart meds by 10 weeks after aortic valve replacement. Just last Friday at rehab I went into A-fib twice. I was not aware of any rapid heartbeat. The day before, I went to the garden to pull some mountain mint that was choking my lilies; I had expected to weed for about an hour...

Pem, if you are considering D.C., why not come an hour further north and check out Johns Hopkins, the #3 heart hospital in the country? I think my surgeon, Duke Cameron, is extraordinary. Pat

This thread has some observations on the subjects of headaches, ocular migraines, and vertigo: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?33310-Headaches-Migraines-following-surgery/page2 The ocular migraines I mentioned recently have disappeared but I am now experiencing more...

Now in week 17 post-surgery, I have finished 9 rehab sessions of 36 and it is going well. The first day, however, was rather scary. My class meets in the hospital where both my parents were declared dead and I never expected to return there, but I signed up because the program is excellent. I...

Thanks, Carl, for resurrecting this thread. My visual disturbances started in the hospital as soon as my awareness returned after aortic valve replacement. Since my vitreous membrane separated in one eye about 10 years ago I have had rather frequent floaters that look like little explosions of...

Hi Allison, I’m sorry you are in a “down” spell. I thought you were amazingly brave and cheery through the surgery and early recovery. I’m in week 14, and am also fretting about my scar. My cardiologist says it already looks somewhat like a keloidic scar. Check my post “Scar Gazing” in a...

At 14 weeks post-surgery I am uncomfortable with my scar, and when I look down at it I have flashbacks to some of the scariest aspects of my surgery. My skin is very pale and the scar is extremely red and rather crooked at the bottom. My chest was stapled and there are vertical rows of very...

My severe obstructive apnea is not any better since surgery, which was three months ago. I had at least hoped I could turn down my fixed pressure of 12 on my CPAP with C-Flex (raised from 9 last summer, which was a hard adjustment), but when I rented an APAP for the time around my surgery I...

Today I drove for the first time since surgery. I was not feeling very confident and asked my husband to ride along. The trip was just a few miles to the library and I found that the palsy in my two fingers made it very difficult. I could not get my left hand situated comfortably on the...

I have numbness in my ring and pinky fingers of my left hand. It started right after surgery and is unchanged almost 7 weeks later. The fingers feel very stressed. They feel both numb and tingly and extremely cold; I wear a glove on that hand indoors. They are also weak and I learned that I...

I was in this place a month ago and it helped me to compose an image I wanted to hold as I was being anesthetized. It was in Bug City, my favorite garden, the year our Kwanzan cherry bloomed at the same time as our pink wisteria. Half the cherry blossoms were on the ground and everything was...