Michelle

My name is Michelle and I am 29. I run a daycare out of my house. I have been married 11 yrs to a wonderful husband and we have 4 kids. I found out in high school I had mitral valve prolapse, which I never had problems with at all. I took antibiotics when I went to the dentist and that was it. Well in April 2003 we had our baby, during the pregnancy in the last trimester I was having some problems. I had swelling in my feet and legs, more headaches than usual, low magnesium and potassium levels. They put off these things to toxemia but they would run tests weekly and they all came up negative for toxemia. April 11th I gave birth to a little girl and she is perfect. But the swelling was getting more severe and I was told that it gets worse after delivery before it would get better. We took our baby in for a 4 day check up and I told our pediatrician what was going on because now I was extremely out of breath. I couldn't talk but just for a minute or two before I would have troubles breathing, when I layed down it got worse. She sent me right up to my OB doctor and after 1.5 hrs she listened to my heart and lungs and said I was fine that the swelling will get worse before it gets better. Well, by 6:00am the next morning I went into the ER because I couldn't breathe and we found out that I had severe mitral regurgitation. I had mv repair 6 days later. My surgeon seemed kind of iffy about it when he talked to my family after surgery. Well 3 wks later I started feeling out of breath again. I went right into my primary care doctor and found out I was in chf again. I saw the cardiologist and he brought the surgeon in to tell me that I would have to go back through the whole awful surgery again. This time they would replace the valve with a St. Judes mechanical valve. So 5 wks after my first surgery I had my second one done. I had the surgery on a Thursday and when I woke up I was throwing up and did not stop until Saturday night. That was the worse feeling ever. They tried all the meds they could they even pulled out the drugs for chemo patients and nothing was helping. Finally by Sunday I was starting to feel better. They don't know why I was so sick except possibly having the surgeries so close togather that not all of the anethesia was out of my system. I had kept nursing my baby until the second surgery because I didn't want to take the chance of coumadin going thru breast milk to her even though they said it wouldn't. Doctors and family could not believe I kept nursing, I only stopped for 8 hours after the tee in the ER and then 12hrs after surgery. It has been 2.5 months sense my second surgery and things are going alot better. Our baby is getting big and our other 3 kids think its cool to listen to my valve tick constantly. I would have never been able to get thru all of this without my wonderful husband. I realize even more now that you have to take life day by day because you don't know if you will be here tomorrow. So you should never go to bed in bad terms or mad at anyone.