wweir
August 12th, 2002, 03:40 PM
Hello all,
So I am less than 60 hours from surgery (07:30 Central time on 15 Aug – AVR – St Jude’s mechanical valve). Let me fill you all in on what is happening.
First off today is my birthday, 57 years young. So how did I spend the day? We, Linda and I, went to see the surgeon, Dr. Jex at the Nebraska Heart Institute. Dr. Jex spent about 45 minutes with us going over everything. Apparently I am quite healthy, other than the valve situation. My aortic valve is .8 and my EF is 45. He is saying that sure I could wait six months to a year to get this done but my condition would be much worse. This was echoed by my surgeon in Calif who basically said the same thing after reviewing my tests.
I then spent about the same amount of time with the anesthesiologist. We went over blood work, tests, my history and so forth. She also took us through the whole series of events.
I feel pretty confident at this point. My surgeon does over 300 heart operations a year, about a quarter of them are valve jobs and his mortality rate is <1%.
My profile, based on having high blood pressure and being overweight, is a risk factor of 2-3 percent. Realizing that no surgery is 100 percent safe those are pretty good odds.
I still have many concerns about coumadin but I also read all your posts and most seem capable of dealing with it at some level. Just hope I can drink my red wine once in a while and eat spinach (yes I really like it).
So am going to enjoy myself today, have a beer or two and take the wife to dinner. My daughters are flying in on Wednesday from California to be with us during this “event”.
I thank all of you for giving me confidence to go through with this and also giving me information to ask the right questions.
My daughters, computer nuts like me, will keep you all posted.
Thanks again for all your help and keeps those prayers coming.
Walter
So I am less than 60 hours from surgery (07:30 Central time on 15 Aug – AVR – St Jude’s mechanical valve). Let me fill you all in on what is happening.
First off today is my birthday, 57 years young. So how did I spend the day? We, Linda and I, went to see the surgeon, Dr. Jex at the Nebraska Heart Institute. Dr. Jex spent about 45 minutes with us going over everything. Apparently I am quite healthy, other than the valve situation. My aortic valve is .8 and my EF is 45. He is saying that sure I could wait six months to a year to get this done but my condition would be much worse. This was echoed by my surgeon in Calif who basically said the same thing after reviewing my tests.
I then spent about the same amount of time with the anesthesiologist. We went over blood work, tests, my history and so forth. She also took us through the whole series of events.
I feel pretty confident at this point. My surgeon does over 300 heart operations a year, about a quarter of them are valve jobs and his mortality rate is <1%.
My profile, based on having high blood pressure and being overweight, is a risk factor of 2-3 percent. Realizing that no surgery is 100 percent safe those are pretty good odds.
I still have many concerns about coumadin but I also read all your posts and most seem capable of dealing with it at some level. Just hope I can drink my red wine once in a while and eat spinach (yes I really like it).
So am going to enjoy myself today, have a beer or two and take the wife to dinner. My daughters are flying in on Wednesday from California to be with us during this “event”.
I thank all of you for giving me confidence to go through with this and also giving me information to ask the right questions.
My daughters, computer nuts like me, will keep you all posted.
Thanks again for all your help and keeps those prayers coming.
Walter