Decisions Decisions
I was discharged from the hospital with a bunch of prescriptions. I went to the pharmacy and got them filled on my way home. Some were in bottles, some were in a blister pack looking like a file folder. I had no idea what any of it was besides that they were for my heart. I knew that some had to be taken in the morning at 6 am and again at 6 pm which it was, at that time. They had to be 12 hours apart, others every four hours throughout the day. I was high as a kite, all fucked up, all day long, every day.
My next appointment with the cardiac surgeon was set for 6 weeks post surgery. I went to that appointment feeling rather frail, the weight loss part if this whole ordeal had kicked in. I ubered to the appointment and met with the surgeon. He said everything went well and he’s happy with the results! Yay! Before the surgery I had 4 valves, he performed a Valve Sparing Root Replacement Repair which is basically what he described to me as or how my cardiologist described it rather, that it’s like plastic surgery on the heart. The patient's aortic valve is kept and reconnected to a new section of aortic tissue. This of course was to close off the leak and to reduce the size of my heart which had become enlarged with the regurgitation. I went in with quadra, 4 valves and came out with a heart that now functioned as bi-cuspid. Two valves.
I told the surgeon during that appointment that there was a funny sensation on my right side, the inner side of my right breast and it was almost like I was being zapped or poked in that area depending on which way I moved and that I was concerned because I had 7 surgical steel wires threaded through my chest that were in place to close my sternum back up and I thought that one of those wires could potentially be poking into me and with that thought came, could these wires that maybe poking into me end up rupturing my implant??
Surgeon says it’s normal to feel these things and that in time it will settle and eventually go away. He prescribed me Toradol, a pain medication and I went on my way. I had a good rapport with this surgeon, I liked him right away. He was the best of the best, he even invented this entire procedure. He was caring, confident and had decades of experience. The zapping, poking pain sensation never did go away.
My next appointment a week or so later was with my cardiologist. I did an echo and a CT scan after the surgery and before I saw her. I was still in this foggy, zombie like state. I’m in a delirium and my cardiologist tells me… that my heart is still leaking and that it’s regurgitating more than she likes! That information went in somewhere and all it did was make me move around faster. I was already constantly hype and in a frantic state, unable to sit still and that piece of information just intensified all of of it.
She told me that the valve has to be replaced. I’m barely 6-7 weeks out of surgery, all the way fucked in the head and I was told that I had to repeat the process! I went home and emailed the surgeon’s assistant right away! I told her in the email what my cardiologist had told me. She forwarded it to him, the surgeon and he respectfully responded to me directly and promptly.
Pause. I’m actually laughing right now as I’m writing this because the whole situation was so fucked up!
However, it definitely wasn’t funny at the time and that information totally fucked up my mental state even more than it already was.
My surgeon replied with a very confident, consoling email telling me that my heart is functioning as it should, that he had brought my heart size down considerably and it was functioning perfectly as bicuspid and that yes, there was a leak. He told me he saw that leak in the echo while I was still in the hospital but leaks are very common. Millions of people have leaks and live with leaks their whole lives without any interference or compilations. “So please, do not worry, go live your normal life.”
I’m already a mess. My head was already all the way fucked up. I’m kind of numb but hyper at the same time and the only way I can describe it, it’s like I’m in zombie mode but moving much faster. I was there but I wasn’t.
I have my cardiologist telling me six weeks post-op that I need to have another heart surgery and that I have to repeat that process but this time the valve has to be replaced and my surgeon is telling me that I am fine and to go live my normal life. (Definitely, not knowing how I lived my “normal life”)
What’s a gal to do?! I figured well, I’ve got two choices. I can sit around and focus on having to relive this nightmare again and I've barely even hit the tip of healing from this surgery or I can try to let it go and go live my normal life, I went with the latter.
