About Me (In My Own Words)
I have been under the care of a cardiologist for years, my family suffers from hypercholesterolemia and coronary artery disease, it affected me, my brother and sister were spared. Most of my family has died from some type of cardiac complication in their 50s. My father made it to 73 passing away in 1983 with no coronaries my first cousin died at 54, about 10 years ago. I have just turned 63, I been on Lipitor for as Iong as I can remember, a 81 mg aspirin, and Repatha was added approximately year and a half ago total cholesterol is now in the 80s with my LDL approximately 34. This past summer I had a CT angiogram as well as a nuclear stress test all normal.
My daughter went into labor on March 25, and had an emergency C-section 1:00 in the morning, March 26. We were concentrating on her. I went to work on Thursday, March 26, because of Covid our office schedule was changed we’re only working half days starting at 7:00 in the morning and finishing by 12, getting up earlier I felt tired because of the schedule. After seeing all of my patients. I went home and felt restless - Thursday afternoon. I felt like I was getting congested and took Mucinex, which didn’t help. I went to CVS and got N-Acetyl-L-Cystine, which also did not help. I took a hot shower, which seemed to help. Friday morning my breathing became more labored and I could not get comfortable, but relaxing down stairs on a couch seem to help, we were concentrating on my daughter and our first grandchild, which was a boy. I had a very restless sleep Friday night. Saturday morning my wife was meeting my son-in-law halfway where they lived outside of Washington DC – Fredericksburg to transfer some supplies, she obtained because of the newborn. She asked if I can drive. I told her I cannot get off the couch. My daughter, who is still in the hospital herself insisted I call the doctor which I did. It took 1 hour to get through to nurse triage switchboard–my office a real person picks up the phone. Triage nurse was no help, and referred me to another service - Bon Secour 24/7, which took another 3 hours to finally speak to a physician. I told them the Pulse oximeter was reading in the mid 80s with my heart rate at 115 and a temperature of 101.9. She told me to immediately go to the hospital emergency room which was March 28 in the late afternoon. I was taken back immediately and chest x-ray was taken which showed severe pneumonia. I had all the signs of Covid. I went up to ICU isolation on 7 L of oxygen. Was placed on the Covid isolation ward in the wee hours of the night. Repeated x-rays show decomposition of my lung fields, the hospitalists and pulmonologist were convinced I had Covid because of the amount of patients I was seeing, as my partner, went on maternity 2 weeks earlier. The only thing that improved my breathing was IV Lasix and experimental nitric oxide supplementation with oxygen. Mind you they were examine me daily, listening to my heart and lung fields. With any kind of walking my oxygen levels dropped even on oxygen 7L to the upper 80s but returned with sitting for the low 90s. After a week and a half on isolation and 2 negative Covid tests in which time I had 2 bouts of severe A. fib. The hospitalist transferred me to telemetry ward. The hospitalist finally insisted on a echocardiogram to “look under the hood”. Russell the technician who has been performing this for 18 years, did not like what he saw but was reserved. 20 minutes later the cardiologist who I have never met, who took over for my cardiologist who recently retired, listening to my heart then told me Pointblank. I have bad news for you, you need emergency open heart surgery - You have a blown mitral valve. We will do a cardiac catheterization tomorrow morning to check your coronaries (which were wide open) - I have some calcification within the intima. We will have you on the schedule for Friday, this was Wednesday afternoon. This hit me like a ton of bricks. The only thing that went through my mind was my sternum was going to be split in half and my chest cracked open in a day and a half. While on telemetry Thursday a.m. I went into severe A. fib and was transferred to the cardiac CVCU ward of the hospital, 3 hours later on IV’s my heart was stabilized to normal rhythm and my cardiac thoracic surgeon decided to hold off surgery until the following Monday morning–April 13 to stabilize me. Over the weekend. A fellow podiatrist called and asked if I did do my research about the procedure, his brother had a valve replacement at 50, 15 years earlier and chosed artificial valve, which had extremely long shelf life, the downside being on Coumadin for the rest of his life, but not having to go through the procedure again. He stated a bovine or porcine valves had a shelf life of 10-15 years, I could not see going through this again in my late 70s or early 80s. I discussed this with my physician who called me down and told me to go with a bovine valve, but more than likely he will try for repair of the mitral valve with an implant to reinforce the orifice which was ultimately done. I found this out after the procedure, which took a lot of weight off my chest. We have all been through cardiac surgery and the first 2 weeks was a fog, which I do not want to have to go through again. Thanks for the teddy bear given out after surgery which was held against my chest when I coughed. The nursing staff at the hospital was superb–St. Mary’s Richmond Virginia. The surgery was 6 weeks ago this past Monday and all is well. Interesting enough, I been off my blood pressure medication ever since surgery. I do take my blood pressure at least twice a day as well as monitor my weight losing 25 pounds since surgery. I’ve completed home physical therapy and had been discharged by my visiting nurse. Due to the Covid the first appointment was by telephone with my cardiac surgery team, they were going to do another telephone visit, I insisted on a face-to-face. This will be early next week on Tuesday. I will start cardiac rehabilitation the following Wednesday which has been postponed because of Covid. I will be returning to work part-time early June, limited schedule.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
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I am from:
Richmond
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My surgery date is:
April 13, 2020
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I was diagnosed with:
Mitral Regurgitation
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My surgery was:
Mitral Valve Repair
Maze Procedure
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My surgeon is:
Dr. Mark Bladergroen
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My hospital is:
St. Mary's Richmmond Virginia
