Nancy
Well-known member
Hi everyone
Joe's surgery is complete and he is in Intensive Care. He went in at 9:00 and was done at 3:00. Much shorter than we had anticipated. They did Port Access or minimally invasive surgery through the right rib because it made easy access to his mitral and tricuspid valves and also because he had two surgeries through the sternum. The into and outof of this type of surgery is a little time consuming, but the procedure itself took less than an hour. It turned out to be a hole in the mitral valve and they were able to stitch it up instead of replacing the valve. The tricuspid has a minimal leak but that was left alone. Most valves leak a little anyway.
Why the leak? My own suspicion is that after his last valve replacement, Joe had 3 faints in which he dropped like a stone. Any of those could have torn something loose. Only a guess, but if I were a betting person, that would be my bet. Immediately after surgery he had been feeling pretty well. The fainting episodes were caused by afib which has been corrected a while back by a combo. of pacemaker and Tiazac.
They never had to use any of the units of blood during surgery.
I'm so relieved. I hope this is the end of this ordeal and we can focus on some fun things, instead of living in a MASH unit.
Joe's surgery is complete and he is in Intensive Care. He went in at 9:00 and was done at 3:00. Much shorter than we had anticipated. They did Port Access or minimally invasive surgery through the right rib because it made easy access to his mitral and tricuspid valves and also because he had two surgeries through the sternum. The into and outof of this type of surgery is a little time consuming, but the procedure itself took less than an hour. It turned out to be a hole in the mitral valve and they were able to stitch it up instead of replacing the valve. The tricuspid has a minimal leak but that was left alone. Most valves leak a little anyway.
Why the leak? My own suspicion is that after his last valve replacement, Joe had 3 faints in which he dropped like a stone. Any of those could have torn something loose. Only a guess, but if I were a betting person, that would be my bet. Immediately after surgery he had been feeling pretty well. The fainting episodes were caused by afib which has been corrected a while back by a combo. of pacemaker and Tiazac.
They never had to use any of the units of blood during surgery.
I'm so relieved. I hope this is the end of this ordeal and we can focus on some fun things, instead of living in a MASH unit.
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