I come from a healthy
family. The first time I
seen a Doctor about my heart
I was 24 years old. At that
time my heart was just
beating weird. I seen a
family physician who ordered
an echo. The echo confirmed
I had a heart murmur, but
the Dr. said lots of people
have heart murmurs and never
even know it. He said, “just
have another echo in five
years”.
The next time I had an echo
I was 32, at this time my
heart was doing that
"fluttering" thing every
once in awhile. The Dr.
said, “you
may need surgery when you’re
older”. Aug.1998 I had a chest x-ray
that showed my heart was
enlarged, but the Dr. still
didn’t
seem concerned. In Aug.
1999 I had another chest
x-ray and an echo done. The
heart was even more enlarged
on this x-ray. The echo
also confirmed the enlarged
heart, with mitral
regurgitation and atrial
fib. At this point I was
tired all the time, and my
heart seemed to always be
beating like crazy. I
finally went to a
cardiologist in January,
2000. This is the first
time I’d
seen a cardiologist in my
life, which I now know was a
big mistake. The
cardiologist said you need
surgery immediately, but
your heart would not survive
the operation at this point,
we have to put you on
medication for six months.
That would make the
operation in July 2000. He
put me on five types of
medication... Coreg,
Spirolactone, Coumadin,
Zestril and Lanoxin. Up to
this point I had been taking
no medication, so that in
itself was a little scary.
I stopped drinking alcohol
and caffeine, which in turn
made me sleep better. I was
feeling much better over all
on the next visit. On that
visit I had another echo
done. After reviewing the
echo he said, "I think you
need to have the surgery in
April". That was very
shocking to me, I cried all
the way home (alone) in a
snowstorm. The next visit
he said we need to schedule
you for surgery. WHAT?!!
This all happened so fast. Next thing I know the
Doctors are calling me from
Denver wanting to schedule
an appointment.
April 3, 2000 I went to
Denver, first I had an angio-gram,
they told me this was to see
if my arteries were okay.
They wanted to know ahead of
time if they needed to do a
by-pass at the same time
they replaced the valve. I
was scheduled for surgery
the next morning, so I spent
the night in the hospital,
had the anti-bacterial
showers, got shaved, all
that stuff. The surgery was
scheduled for 8:00 A. M. the
next morning. I’m
all ready to go to O. R. and
at 7:30 the nurse comes in
and tells me there has been
an emergency. Your surgeon
had to do someone else
first.”
What?!!
I think you have to have had
this surgery to know what it
takes to mentally prepare
yourself for it. They said
he could do me after he
finished the one he was
doing, but I said no
thanks. I’ll
wait until tomorrow. So I
went back to the hotel with
my husband rather than stay
in the hospital that night.
The next morning I was at
the hospital at 5:30. By
the time they were done with
all the preparations and
wheeled me down to the
holding area it was about
7:30. My husband and I had
watched a 20/20 show about
surgeons doing the wrong
procedures on people, or
doing the left knee instead
of the right one etc on
television the night
before. They told how some
people were writing on their
bodies what needed operated
on to assure the proper
procedure was done on them.
The nurses in the holding
area had watched the same
program so we had a good
time laughing about how I
should write "mitral valve"
on my breasts. On his way
in to get ready for the
surgery the anesthesiologist
came by and introduced
himself, when I seen his
cowboy boots I knew I’d
be okay. :)
At 8:00 I was wheeled down
that long hallway to OR. That was a trip I’ll
never forget, a million
things went through my mind
during that short trip.
Thank goodness my favorite
cowboy put me right to
sleep. 9:00 they told my
husband they’d
started cutting, 10:00 that
I’m
on the heart & lung machine,
11:00 the mechanical valve
is being sewn in, 12:00 I’m
off the heart & lung machine
and the mechanical valve is
beating on it’s
own & they didn’t
have to repair the
tricuspid, 1:00 I’m
all sewn up and should be in
ICU soon. I woke up just as
they were wheeling me into
ICU. All the hoses were out
of my mouth and my hands
were free. Wait a minute...
I remember them pulling warm
blankets out of an oven
kinda thing and putting them
over me, before they took me
to ICU. That sure felt
nice. :) And hearing them
talking about my blood
pressure...... okay... I
guess I woke up before I got
to ICU... that’s
all a little confusing.
I was sooooooo
thirsty! They said I
couldn’t
have water for five hours!!
They let me have ice chips
instead. They said my
stomach was not ready to
accept the water and I would
be throwing it right back
up. They assured me that
would be a really, really
bad thing. My oldest son
got there shortly after I
got to ICU. He’s
wrestled all his life and
knows all about being
thirsty... He slipped me
extra ice chips when the
nurse wasn’t
looking. :) I’ve
never been so thirsty in my
life.
After 24 hours they moved me
down to the cardiac floor.
They kept telling me to eat
and wanted to give me pills
to make me hungry. I didn’t
take them, but did force
myself to eat. I had to
have a couple more units of
blood and humongous
potassium pills, coumadin,
pain pills, sleeping pills,
lots of pills. I asked them
what the pills were each
time they gave them to me
and what they were putting
in my IV. Not that I’m
paranoid, I just wanted to
know. After the first day I
stopped taking the sleeping
pills and about half the
pain pills. The Dr. didn’t
care, I was doing fine. The
very last day I found out
that if I’d
have told them I didn’t
want to smoke that crazy
pipe in the middle of the
night, it would have been
okay. Oh well, it was
probably good for me. My
oldest son a college
freshman at CSU came over to
see me as often as he
could. I also had his Dad,
my husband, there with me
during the day. After five
days I was released and on
my way home. We took two
days to get here. (an 8 hr.
drive) My younger son, a
junior in high school,
helped my Mom out with my 6
year old daughter while I
was gone. Fantastic kids, I
won’t
bore you with how proud I am
of them, or how all three of
them are straight A
students, the boys are eagle
scouts stuff like that.
I’m
still on lanoxin, Toprol,
coumadin, baby aspirin and a
multi-vitamin. I’m
still in atrial
fibrillation, and probably
always will be. Since the
surgery and being on the
medicine, it’s
not nearly as annoying as it
used to be. And I can hear
my valve, sometimes it seems
really loud and other times
I can hardly hear it. That
part doesn’t
bother me.
Heart surgery changed my
life in a lot of ways. It’s
nice to find people who have
had the same experiences and
are willing to share them
with others.
Dr. John Propp, a most
awesome surgeon, replaced my
mitral valve with St. Jude
mechanical valve in Denver,
CO on 4-6-00.
