Welcome to my day to day journal of having open heart surgery.

When I started this blog I was not sure if I would need surgery but after many tests and doctors visits I had valve replacement surgery on June 23, 2010. I was born with a congenital heart defect, a bicuspid aortic valve. My blog reads backwards (like all blogs)....not like a story in chronological order...so go all the way to the beginning (here) to read about my history and how this all got started.

Let me know you stopped by......leave me a comment :)

Friday, April 30, 2010

...not just in the morning anymore


Ok, this has turned into an all day event now.....I have better moments but I am not doing great.  Dan (husband) really wants me to go to Ocean City this weekend and visit my parents. They had moved into a new house and I still had not been down.....but I really just don;t feel like myself.  I am so tired and exhusted.  My heart is always doing PVC's and I have trouble catching my breath.   But I went.  I was glad to be there once I was there but my ankles and feet told a different story.  My ankles were soooo swollen from sitting for so long in the car (3 1/2 hours).  I went to bed around midnight and my ankles looked worse than before.  The swelling moved down into my feet by sunday and even my toes were touching each other....it was awful..I had to get back into the car and come all the way home sunday afternnoon.  I did enjoy myself...we went to the beach, out to a seafood dinner with my parents and my aunt and uncle but I have to wonder if everyone knew how tired I was......

Thursday, April 29, 2010

Stress Thallium Test

Yesterday and today I did my test.  I really could not walk on it like I use to be able too.  I asked when I could stop and the moment I could, I did.  Not good.  I got dizzy and lightheaded.  I was soooo out of breath and I had pressure in my chest.

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Don't feel quite right...maybe it's Stress

I have been though a lot lately.....maybe more than the average person on a day to day basis but I thought I was doing ok.  I got a new job in March.....the first week I was there...the first day in fact, I got shingles on my face.  Had to be off a few days.  Then one of my twins was sick with the flu, we thought, but actually ended up with a ruptured appendix and in hospital for a week.  Off from work a little more but I did go EVERY day and just left early to go to the hospital which was an hour from work.  Ok there's some stress.....Then about 2 weeks go by and my heart is just not feeling right.  It was always in the morning.  I would get my shower, dressed, blow dry hair and get to my car and then on my way to work it would not be beating right.....or I would have this strange pressure in the center of my chest with jaw pain.  This really started happened every day.  So my husband decided I really should see the cardiologist.  We met with her and she ordered some tests.  They thought my BP was way to high...which is strange for me, I usually run about 120/70...that day it was 196/98 ....crazy.   So we bought a BP machine for the house and we could never get a high reading on me.  I even had one of the nurses at work (I work in a doctor's office)  and she got 130/80...so I think it was a fluke...but who knows.....anyway.....we will see what the tests reveal.

Thursday, April 1, 2010

...a little history

     I decided to write this because once I found out I may have to have my valve replaced, the first thing I did was start googling and searching out peoples stories and experiences.  I came across a lot of male points of view, which I appreciated reading, but I thought I could add to the mix my thoughts, feelings, fears and outcome.  I also thought this might be a great way to keep eveyone I love in touch with what is going on with me, the surgery and my recovery

    I will give you a little background for those who don't know me.  I am 43 (yes, I know, too young for this) years old.  I have 4 children ranging from 17 to 11 years old.  I just recently remarried to a wonderful guy who is the one who really pushed me to go to the cardiologist a month or so ago.  I have as real tendency to ignore and hope for the best.  Not a great quality......I'm aware.  I was born with a bicuspid aortic valve that has required me to be mindful and watch.

     In my teenage years I experienced a lot of tachycardia and that only got worse when I became pregnant in my late 20's.  I finally had catheter ablation in 2003 and that actually completely cured the tachycardia.  It has never happened again!  SO really my heart quieted down for a while and then in the fall of 2007, I started to not feel right.  I was having PVC's(new for me), I lost my breath alot and I lost my voice.  My cardiologist started me on a beta blocker....but honestly they made me feel worse.  He told me that they may just go away.  He did all the usual things...holter monitor, echo, stress test  and heart CT......My echo showed my aortic valve opening (AVA) was 1.6.  A normal one should be 3mm to 4mm.  So he called that moderate and sent me on my way. I had one morning that was pretty bad, enough to scare me and we went to the ER.  They saw all the PVC's and PAC's but really everything else was fine so I was not admitted.   He was right, the PVC's did finally stop within a month or so.

     My heart did not skip a beat or make a blimp until......