Contact sport 11 weeks after BAVR!!

[liam13]

I knew the Irish were tough. I play soccer and am looking at having to give that up that as I play keeper. I am 46, so how I would approach my decision at 29 is a moot point. I love gaelic football, I've watched a number of games here in Seattle and thought about getting on the team. I played rugby in highschool and college so love that type of competition. These are tough decisions we are asked to make, so more power to ya. My grandfather is from the Shannon area and I was back in Ireland a few years ago.. Wonderful plac. Liam

 

[Magic8Ball]

M8ball

Interesting to hear your story.

What do you reckon is too risky as regards contact when considering do and dont's with warafrin? 5 aside soccer?

Do you think it is safe to reach a high HR during exercise? For example, I can only do recreational stuff at the min. such as 5-aside where my HR would get up to 170 easily (which is prob a little high), but I wonder that when I go under the knife again (assuming that I go for a mechanical), what I'll be able to do.

My surgeon said with any activity, assess the risk to you, then decide...if YOU are happy with the risk then do it.

I have two kids, 11 and 5 so my risk assessment is based on them being without a father due to my pig headedness wanting to pursue an activity. If i was single i'd still be riding the bike but not sure about doing the martial arts even then.

High HR during exercise is probably not good as being on beta blockers as i beleive any reading you get is lower than your heart is actually working (if that makes sense)...the only organised exercise i have done since surgery is two games of indoor cricket, my hr got to 185 at one point during that so i stopped doing it.

Ive come to the conclusion for myself that i am happy to be fit for life in general and happy to be around for as long as possible, to jepoardise that in order to 'prove to myself' that i can still do stuff that i could do before surgery seems self destructive.

As long as i can have a kick about with the kids, swim, ride a push bike and live a generally active life and live that life long enough to see my kids married and with kids of their own will be enough for me. It may not be enough for others but that has to form part of their risk assessment.

Best of luck.

 

[Bionic Man]

My sitch

My sitch

Hey Bionic Man

Out of interest what age are you?

If you have Marfans, is your Aorta likely to dilate again or will this correct the problem?

Interesting that you are playing basketball again. I assume you are taking warafrin? Do you play competitively i.e. for a team?

I suppose the risks are small as B'Ball is pretty much a no contact sport.

I'm 37. I play basketball just with family and friends when they come by. We have a tradition of playing whenever we have a family gathering. Most of the guys are younger than me but are all tall like me and so it gets quite intense.

As for other sports I do Karate and am having fun with that. I have sparring limitations right now and may need some extra gear but some day I hope to even compete in that as well as the kata forms.

I expect some day my aorta may dilate again but I'm on toprol which significantly lowers that risk. The doc replaced my ascending and decending aorta with a graft. It's perhaps possible for the remainder of my decending to give out but from what I understand the decending is less critical and comes with a little more warning and is easier to repair in an emergency. I get echos every 6 months to check anyway.

Also it took me 20 + years to get this bad, the doc thinks it's unlikely that it will happen again. I'm naturally so paranoid and so careful (obsessively so) with the surgery I realized that I've been such a careful person for so long and I was still going to die of some stupid thing so why not just live and enjoy it? I have kids and I worry about not being there for them but I also don't want them to grow up with a dad that does nothing.

Prior to surgery (no warfarin/coumadin) I nearly had a fatal nose bleed.. bled for 3 hours even in the ER with 6 people hovering around and cursing because after multiple cauterization attempts I was still gushing blood, so much so that they couldn't even tell where it was coming from. That scene freaked me out so bad I could hardly sleep for months knowing that I could be dead by morning if I started bleeding at night. Needless to say that one would expect now that I'm on warfarin that I'd be crawling the walls waiting for the moment I would start some kind of fatal bleeding. Rather, it's been the oposite. It's been over two years now I guess and I feel better than before in every way and it's all been because of my life-choice.

Since both of those incidents I just kinda feel like that you can kick the bucket just from doing nothing so why not do something you love and enjoy it while you can. If I die doing what I love, I guess my boys may be mad at me, maybe they'll even hate me for it. I hope that some day the'll realize that "dad must have loved me because he played ball with me, he must have loved me because he LIVED and didn't just stay inside all the time." The lesson I hope that I can teach them is to just live and make a difference. Enjoy their life and the time they are given.

After so much of my life has felt out of my control I finally feel like I'm really me. I feel happy, confident, fit and want to feel that way right up to the minute I keel-over doing something I love.

Perhaps I will not live long but at least I'll LIVE.

Please realize that I'm not advising anyone else to do the same, I'm just saying that personally I'm happy now that I have made my choice.

David

 

[kodi]

Great attitude and personally I think very good words to live by. I changed my attitude twelve years ago after my cancer surgery and re-enforced it after my heart surgery. I think most of us on this forum have probably gone thru the same type of 'what life is all about and what's important' experience and probably share your thoughts.

 

[mtkayak]

I personally have not slowed down as far as being active on Coumadin. I do quite a bit of whitewater kayaking and rocks are my enemy. It worries my Card to some degree but he seems to think as long as I wear the best helmet on the market I should be fine. I do have to say if I gave up kayaking it would severly depress me so it was a tough decision. But I knew I didn't want any future surgeries. So, I may paddle just a little more cautiously but never give it up. I have split my head open once and had 5 stitches (pre-op) but it was under control. I do carry a first aid kit all the time while out in the wilderness. My biggest scare is being miles away from a medical facilities while in a wilderness if something did happen. With that mindset, if I played sports in the city it would worry me as much being close to medical facilities. At 37 when I had the surgery, it just seemed to young to go with tissue. I don't feel like going through that crap again, too much recovery time.

 

[Bad Mad]

Fair play Bionic man.

That is exactly the attitude I have been tempted to deploy, given my current circumstances. However my situation is different in that:

the risk is of an aortic dissection from high intensity contact sport.

Have to say though, the prospects for the ON-X valve look good, for people who (which is prob just about everyone!!) want to have a mechanical valve implanted but not take the dosage of warafrin for their days.

 

[Bionic Man]

Dont know much about aortic dissections

Dont know much about aortic dissections

I think rugby would be in a class beyond what the rest of us are doing for exercise.

You'd think I'd study this more having had this type of issue with a disecting aorta. I understand that the general idea is to keep blood pressure down and thereby not getting back into a dangerous situation. Perhaps risking a direct hit to the abdomen is too dangerous. Football (american style) and rugby may be just too risky in terms of being hit very hard in the wrong places.

Even me doing karate is probably an order of magnitude safer given that even if sparring contact is strictly controlled and my teacher will only allow me to spar with black belt students who have significanly more self control than the average student. Hmmm..

I've always heard of contact sport discouragement in terms of coumadin but never heard a doctor say "you must not do this because of the graft" or "because you might dissect again". I'll ask my doc specifically about that next time I talk to him. In any case I plan to keep my doc up to date on the things I want to do and will very seriously reconsider if he says "no" to something.

David