Surgery Postponed

[Sctb78]

Hello, i previously posted in the Heart Talk section but for some reason i now cannot post a reply to my original topic (http://www.valvereplacement.org/foru...-pvr-candidate)

So, surgery for PVR and possible Tricuspid repair was scheduled for August 8th but unfortunately i received a phone call the day before admission to postpone due to an emergency admission for my surgeon. Pretty gutted after all the build up but nothing that can be done. I'm just glad i'm not the emergency and hope that whoever took my spot is ok. We are now looking at late August before i can be taken, an extra 3 weeks of being able to lift and carry my 11 month old daughter around, seeing my 6 year old boy off to his second year of primary school and more time on my bike (if the Scottish weather allows ;-)).
Things i could not do just now if my surgery went ahead as planned, focus on the positives folks!
​Scott

 

[NewbieSlo]

Great to see, that you focus on the positve, that does make life easier. Enjoy your time with the family and I'm sure that with such an attitude also your recovery will be fast and by the time that the next cycling season will begine, you will be feeling even better and more fit than today.

 

[Red]

Hi Sct78, It is very disappointing but I believe everything happens for a reason ..... I was originally told 6 months which turned into 9, but a positive attitude will carry you far and shortly all this will be a distant memory and you will be a fully fledged member of the zipper club. I am now just over 9 weeks post op and have a similar attitude, minus the bike, to you and it has served me well, I trust it will be the same for you. With best zipper wishes, Gerri

 

[Duffey]

So sorry to read that the surgery has been postponed, but as Red states, it seems that postponements often happen for a reason. Hang in there and try to enjoy the reprieve! Best wishes, Mary

 

[Sctb78]

Thanks for the responses, Red i am already a zipper club member having had a Pulmonary Valvotomy aged 3. I can't really remember much about that time though but i have a cool scar to show for it .
Unfortunately after 33 years of life without much of a Pulmonary Valve my cardiologist has decided it's time to get a new one in there and perhaps repair the Tricuspid whilst they are at it "we'll see when we get in there" was my surgeons words.
This forum has helped a lot in the lead up to my surgery, hopefully i will be able to post about a boring uneventful recovery in a few weeks!

 

[Sctb78]

Now postponed again, revised date is mid September.
If things happen for a reason, perhaps i am not meant to go through with this. Staying positive is proving difficult at the moment but i'll keep going.
Hmmm...

 

[Paleowoman]

I think it's because of problems within the NHS There has been a lot in the press recently about operations being postponed The only upside is that if they postpone it more than so many times you'll get it done at a private hospital where at least you'll get a private room and better food (if you have an appetite).

I think this is a pretty poor show of the NHS. It's getting worse and worse. I'm involved in my GP's surgery patient participation group and CCG and there's loads and loads of increasing problems, it's not just the Daily Mail saying that.

I wish you the very best and hope they hurry up and do your replacement soon. It really is not good to keep postponing operations, very stressful for patients and, if NHS admin just organised themselves a bit more this kind of thing would be rarer. If there is any way you can complain to your cardiac surgeon, cardiologist, GP or Patient Liason Service do, it can't hurt and they need to know.

 

[Sctb78]

Calmed down a bit now just needed to vent, i can't really complain. The date in August was only provisional and that was altered and confirmed once the scheduling office got everything in order. The hospital i am being admitted, Golden Jubilee National Hospital, has private rooms anyway so no upside to delays (it used to be private but proved unsuccessful in private hands and the hospital was purchased by the NHS). In addition it is the national centre for adult congenital heart defects so i think i'm best waiting.

Having said that, I hope this date does not get postponed. Waiting is the worst part according to the folks on this forum and i am beginning to agree.

 

[Paleowoman]

I know some people say the waiting is the worst, but I'd say that if you have been given a date and it is postponed that must be worse as you psych yourself up for this huge surgery, your family are all prepared for it, and then they postpone it and then postpone it again !

I must be really weird re waiting because I didn't want my surgery when it was, I wanted it much later in the year as I had lots of things I wanted to do, plus I was asymptomatic. I imagine anyone with symptoms would be really freaking having to wait though.

I'm glad you'll get a private room as I can't imagine sleeping in a public ward, it's difficult enough to sleep soon after surgery as it is.

 

[Sctb78]

Luckily i'm asymptomatic apart from some ankle swelling so i can afford to wait i guess. Now my dad has been scheduled for a hip replacement the same day as i undergo my valve replacement. You couldn't make this up! I've said the first one discharged from hospital buys the beers

 

[Sctb78]

So, here we go again.. I've been rescheduled to 16th September, i was meant to be undergoing surgery today. Not long to wait now, hopefully it happens this time. I'm ready to take this on and get on the road to recovery!

 

[epstns]

Good grief! What a botch-up of a system.

I thought I had a messed up schedule when I was scheduled for surgery on Tuesday morning, but they called me on Saturday and asked if I could come in that Monday instead.

Here at work, we have a Canadian who is always barking about the superiority of the UK and Canadian NHS. I tell him of these stories and he blows me off, saying "Those are just the few issues that the press gets hold of. The system is better than what we have here." I tend to disagree, at least for now. We will see what our government makes of healthcare soon enough.

 

[Sctb78]

Yeah it is pretty messed up. The NHS is great when you get hit by a bus or some other emergency procedure but when there are waiting lists involved you are at the mercy of the scheduling system. Meeting with the surgeon tomorrow, then admission Monday. Fingers crossed.

 

[tom in MO]

A friend's son works in Vancouver doing PT. One of his clients needed a knee replacement. He thought the wait was excessive and impacting his quality of life. He is wealthy, so he went to the US and had it done within a week of making up his mind to pay for it. He got only one knee replaced, about a year later, he needed his second knee done. He was lucky, he had never cancelled the first operation and that finally came up in the schedule, so he didn't have to wait hardly at all for the second operation. Karma can be good

 

[NewbieSlo]

Sounds like the NHS is the same as our system here in Slovenia, if you are not about to die (or at least they think that you will not), you need to wait - and for example the waiting time for a rheumatologist is over one year!!! Since we are a small nation (around two million) there are only a couple of them in the country and we only have public hospitals, no privat, you also can not go to a public hospiatl and say: I would like to skip the line, can I pay out of my pocket? No, that is non-existing, the money does not help you at all. So all you can do is either you go abroad (and when you are seriously ill you usually don't have the energy to search for clinics abroad), either you're a VIP or you know a doctor and you skip the waiting line (yes, unfortunately this does happen a lot here!) or you wait. And wait....

I hate waiting and I hate the talk about how great it s, that we have public health system, that is available to everyone. I'm convinced that this type of system that we have is ideal for corruption, responsible for many disabilities (while you wait your condition gets worse, and a conditions that could be easily cured becomes a life-long problem) and deaths, but here no one wants to talk about it.

Sorry, I needed to vent :-(

 

[NewbieSlo]

And now to something completely different: all the best for your upcoming surgery and an uneventful recovery! Keep us posted!