lgurevitch
Member
Hello All,
I have been a long time reader of these boards but only posted for the first time the day before my AVR surgery on July 8. My recovery is going pretty well and I am gaining my strength back. I have been off the pain pills for about a week now. My appetitive has returned and am walking about a mile a day.
I have experienced some complications or setbacks and, from what I can tell by reading the other posts, they are somewhat "common" or "normal".
1) I developed Pleurisy mostly due to extreme fluid retention post surgery. It was quite painful to take a deep breath and my cardiologist sent me to the ER last week so they could rule out blood clots and pneumonia (which they did). He put me back on lasix and the pleurisy seems to be improving.
2) I am anemic, most likely due to the blood I got during and after my surgery (9 units) so the doc put me on Iron supplements.
3) I just had an echo at my cardiologists and apparently my aortic (pig) valve has a small leak, he said it could be post op normal leakage but it looks a little more than that and he wants me to have a TEE in the next couple of days and a CT scan in the next week or so to make sure one of my stitches hasn't come loose or something like that.
4) The CT scan I had in the ER showed a thickening of the aortic root and the doc wants to see what's going on there (with the TEE and CT scan). He said it could be due to healing after surgery.
5) I am experiencing heart palpitations somewhat regularly. The doc wants me to wear a 24 hour monitor to see what's going on there.
6) My last blood work at the cardiologist showed that I was "hypothyroid" which is nothing I have ever heard before about myself. The doc thinks this could be related to my body adjusting to the shock of surgery and wants to re-test in a couple of weeks or month.
So, is there anyone out there who has experienced any of these complications (specifically the leaky valve post surgery). I did a search on the board and could not really find anything about this.
Thanks for your input and support.
Liz Gurevitch
Age 43
Aortic Valve Replacement on July 8, 2009 at Emory University Hospital by Dr. Edward Chen
I have been a long time reader of these boards but only posted for the first time the day before my AVR surgery on July 8. My recovery is going pretty well and I am gaining my strength back. I have been off the pain pills for about a week now. My appetitive has returned and am walking about a mile a day.
I have experienced some complications or setbacks and, from what I can tell by reading the other posts, they are somewhat "common" or "normal".
1) I developed Pleurisy mostly due to extreme fluid retention post surgery. It was quite painful to take a deep breath and my cardiologist sent me to the ER last week so they could rule out blood clots and pneumonia (which they did). He put me back on lasix and the pleurisy seems to be improving.
2) I am anemic, most likely due to the blood I got during and after my surgery (9 units) so the doc put me on Iron supplements.
3) I just had an echo at my cardiologists and apparently my aortic (pig) valve has a small leak, he said it could be post op normal leakage but it looks a little more than that and he wants me to have a TEE in the next couple of days and a CT scan in the next week or so to make sure one of my stitches hasn't come loose or something like that.
4) The CT scan I had in the ER showed a thickening of the aortic root and the doc wants to see what's going on there (with the TEE and CT scan). He said it could be due to healing after surgery.
5) I am experiencing heart palpitations somewhat regularly. The doc wants me to wear a 24 hour monitor to see what's going on there.
6) My last blood work at the cardiologist showed that I was "hypothyroid" which is nothing I have ever heard before about myself. The doc thinks this could be related to my body adjusting to the shock of surgery and wants to re-test in a couple of weeks or month.
So, is there anyone out there who has experienced any of these complications (specifically the leaky valve post surgery). I did a search on the board and could not really find anything about this.
Thanks for your input and support.
Liz Gurevitch
Age 43
Aortic Valve Replacement on July 8, 2009 at Emory University Hospital by Dr. Edward Chen