Good questions, Joy.
I do not know how long MVR takes. I know there are some pretty big time differences between different procedures. Part of it will certainly depend if your replacement is mechanical or tissue.
My AVR stentless took 6 hours. My previous homograft took a lot longer because Donald Ross came in and was using me as a guinea pig to teach the doc's hear how to do the procedure.
I do not know if the pre-admission clinic (pre-op appointments) procedures are universal by hospital. Mine entailed:
-Watch a video that tells what to expect post-op.
-Take a standard ECG. Or is it EKG? (Anyway, it's the one with all the electrodes hooked up to you for a minute or so - not the echocardiogram).
-Blood Gases: They stick a needle in the artery in your wrist and take some arterial blood. It sounds worse than it is. When they did mine, they hit the vein and had to do it again and it still was no big deal.
-Take blood: They screen and type it.
-Talk to the aneasthesiologist (spelling?) so they can explain what they do.
-Blow into a little machine that measures your lung capacity, O2 and I don't know what else.
-Chest X-Rays.
-Talk to a senior nurse. She does an examination; listens to breathing and your heart, takes BP, answers any questions about the operation and post-op.
-A nurse takes your history.
-Physio talks to you about the importance of exercise post-op and breathing.
The time it takes to wake up varies by patient and procedure. When I had mine recently, they kept me asleep a lot longer than usual because my internal temp was low. They wanted the core to heat up before they woke me up. I went in at noon and was awake at 2am. It sucked because the longer you are under the more of that gunk is in your system and it takes a while to work its way out of your body.
I understand that this isn't typical.
I woke up from AVR differently with each of my two procedures. Waking from my first operation seemed to take forever. I heard voices talking to me and I thought I was moving my hands to tell them I was ok and awake. Obviously, I was not awake because my wife later told me that instead of moving my hand, I would shudder as a response.
My second operation felt like it took little time at all. It could be because I was kept "just under" while I warmed up, so perhaps it wasn't as far to come back to consciousness.
Despite the obvious messed up mental state, I distinctly remember thinking a big, "YES, I MADE IT!" upon waking after both surgeries.
These are good questions. If you have any more, feel free to private message or email me. I wrote my experience out in great detail after my surgeries so I would not forget.
Sometimes it's hard to discuss these things before surgery. I hope I wasn't too graphic for you. You've got enough to worry about right now, but I know that with your brave attitude, you are going to do GREAT!
Kev
