Yeah, it sounds as if your ready to have your aortic valve and ascending aorta replaced. It is a major surgery and kind of a rough recovery for the first week. If you read all the threads marked sticky in each of the major forum topics you'll get a lot of useful information.
You basically have two broad types of choices for a valve, mechanical vs tissue. With tissue you may never need to take warfarin but it will wear out and you'll be in the same situation again in approximately 10-15 years. With the mechanical you may never need open heart surgery again but will need to take warfarin for the rest of your life. But you may find like thousands of others here that its not that bad.
mmm...Dear Fundy, please be careful making assumptions and providing broad statements, because you may actually confuse some folks with your well meaning and well intentioned statements. It may be better to confine your statements to your personal experience...eg, "I had a choice of a tissue or a mechanical valve, and this is what I did etc etc... There is far more involved for some patients than just a choice between tissue or mechanical etc. Yiannis is possibly one such example....it would seem that Yiannis is about to have not just a valve but also part of the aort replaced, and depending on the particular situation, there may in fact be no reasonable choice about what sort of valve to have...the particular cardiologist may in fact "highly recommend a specific mechanical valve to avoid operating on a repaired aorta every again. ....anyaway, enough of that.
Dear Yiannis, firstly I guess its just great to focus on the fact that you may soon have surgery that will repair your valve and aorta, and thats just fantastic news, and this surgery will give you a chance to live a long life which might not be possible if you don't have the surgery...so always keep that in mind.
Take it one step at a time is what I decided to do, and cross each hurdle as it comes. Everyone of us are individuals and have different experiences and some have complications from surgery, otehrs seem to breeze through. Keep asking questions as it is good to be informed, but ultimately, no one knows exactly what lies ahead. Personally speaking, my surgery was now 6 months ago, and it seems like a lifetime ago. Fortunately my aorta was ok, but it would have enlarged if my valve was left unrepaired, and the decision was made to repalce my aortic valve before the aortic root started to enlarge. My left ventricle had started to enlarge a bit, but now, at 6 months, I have just had an cardiac echo and it has already returned completely to normal dimensions. I had warfarin for 3 months, and had never taken so much as a headache tablet before in my life, but I did what I was told, and followed advice from my doctor and nursing staff, and it turned out to be uncomplicated for me...for me it was no issue at all for the short time I took it. My waarfarin level quickly stabilised and remained fairly within the target range (2.0-3.0). Previously I used to faint if I even gave blood, but now I could do my own blood test if I had to...a bit tricky but at least I wouldn't feint. I used to show the nurse where it was best to take my blood (we would alternate arms and sites all the time so my veins didn't get scarred). Anyway, I am now off warfaarin, but take a few tablets daily, to enure my blood pressure remains at the low end of normal (which helped my ventricle return to normal size quickly)....The chest has healed, and I can do push ups again easily....(but don't do this until you have the all clear), from abut 8 weeks post surgery I went to cardiac rehabilitation classes weekly, and this was fantastic...meeting other people, talking to the nurses, and exercising with experts guiding what you shoud do, and gradually increasing the exercise each week. For me, these classes were the key to quick recovery, as we had lessons on diet, exercise, stress, medications, looking after your scar, and just meeting others in the same situation. I am very very active, and really wanted to avoid long term warfarin, but in the end I just resolved myself to taking the advice from the experts. We don't know what the future knows, and warfarin may be repalced at some stage in the future....there are drugs being trialled right now, so who knows. Your long term health depends on your valve being replaced and your aorta being repaired, so focus on that, and be guided by your cardiac surgeon and the experts who will care for you. I wish you all the best. I returned to work after 8 weeks, and at 6 months I am surfing, fising, lifting weights, doing push ups, and my chest hair has grown back and no one would know that I had had life saving open heart surgery. Let us know how you get on
