rdouglas302
Member
1 week 3 days post op (from round 2); wanted to share my story. The short, a little over 3yrs ago I was diagnosed with bicuspid aortic valve with moderate regurgitation. To my knowledge I never experienced the first symptom. I began visiting a cardiologist routinely with the knowledge that one day it would be time to get my valve replaced. I guess the name of the game is to wait for as long as possible. Then a surgeon in Germany and personal friend of my family convinced us that he could repair my valve and I could hang on to my native valve and be done with it. This sounded great! After researching the insurance, etc. we quickly realized it wasn’t going to happen….but it was too late, I had the repair fever. I started looking within the US for surgeons who considered repair b/c no surgeon (that I know of anyway) in Atlanta would spend any time on the subject. I found a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic who is extremely experienced in aortic valve repair and I sent my information immediately. I got an appt. and headed to Cleveland in February. After an entire day of testing I got to meet the surgeon face to face. I still experienced no symptoms from the condition but the size of my LV indicated that it would be time soon. So from there we made our plans and surgery would be in October……reality quickly set in.
We arrived in Cleveland on October 12th and surgery was on Thursday the 14th. The surgery went very well, I didn’t feel a thing . The surgeon walked into the room to talk to my wife with a huge smile on his face. His words were something to the effect of “it’s perfect…it went perfect. It was an ideal fix, there was no leakage and it’s as if he’d never even had this.” So my wife was ecstatic and so was I when she told me in the ICU; after I stopped forgetting…I think it took about 9 or 10 times to set in.
Saturday morning rolled around and it was time for my follow up echocardiogram. Not that I know how to read these by any means, but I’ve seen quite a few by now and I thought there sure was still a lot of “red” in this thing…but I didn’t think too much of it. Well, next thing we knew a cardiologist walked in the room with news that he’d reviewed the echo and it was not so exciting anymore. There was a leak that they were seeing that was “pretty bad” and I’d need to have an esophageal echo to see exactly what was going on. Monday was the day we were expecting to be discharged and remain in Cleveland for a couple of days. Instead our news was the leak was so bad that I’d need another operation right away….more than likely the valve would have to be replaced. The conclusion was the repair did in fact work well at first, but my valve tissue couldn’t hold the suture and basically tore apart.
All of this being said it just goes to show there are no guarantees on anything in this game and anything can happen. I don’t regret going for the repair at all, but apparently it wasn’t meant for me so thank goodness it failed as quickly as it did and the wonderful people at Cleveland clinic could do what needed to be done right away. I was back in the OR last Wednesday the 20th and opted for the bovine valve. That was the best decision for me personally based on my lifestyle as it is right now.
It’s very difficult to cram all of my thoughts about this into this one (very long) post but I’d say I got the story across at least. I hope that some of you will share your thoughts as well. Although I’ve not been one to post a lot on this site, it sure has been a lifesaver at times over the last few years!
We arrived in Cleveland on October 12th and surgery was on Thursday the 14th. The surgery went very well, I didn’t feel a thing . The surgeon walked into the room to talk to my wife with a huge smile on his face. His words were something to the effect of “it’s perfect…it went perfect. It was an ideal fix, there was no leakage and it’s as if he’d never even had this.” So my wife was ecstatic and so was I when she told me in the ICU; after I stopped forgetting…I think it took about 9 or 10 times to set in.
Saturday morning rolled around and it was time for my follow up echocardiogram. Not that I know how to read these by any means, but I’ve seen quite a few by now and I thought there sure was still a lot of “red” in this thing…but I didn’t think too much of it. Well, next thing we knew a cardiologist walked in the room with news that he’d reviewed the echo and it was not so exciting anymore. There was a leak that they were seeing that was “pretty bad” and I’d need to have an esophageal echo to see exactly what was going on. Monday was the day we were expecting to be discharged and remain in Cleveland for a couple of days. Instead our news was the leak was so bad that I’d need another operation right away….more than likely the valve would have to be replaced. The conclusion was the repair did in fact work well at first, but my valve tissue couldn’t hold the suture and basically tore apart.
All of this being said it just goes to show there are no guarantees on anything in this game and anything can happen. I don’t regret going for the repair at all, but apparently it wasn’t meant for me so thank goodness it failed as quickly as it did and the wonderful people at Cleveland clinic could do what needed to be done right away. I was back in the OR last Wednesday the 20th and opted for the bovine valve. That was the best decision for me personally based on my lifestyle as it is right now.
It’s very difficult to cram all of my thoughts about this into this one (very long) post but I’d say I got the story across at least. I hope that some of you will share your thoughts as well. Although I’ve not been one to post a lot on this site, it sure has been a lifesaver at times over the last few years!