Dorothea's Journal

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks since my mitral valve repair. Crazy how fast the time flies. 2 days after getting home I purchased a Fitbit "Sense" watch. It's been an awesome addition to my recovery. It shows my pulse rate; steps; sleep and I can run and ECG anytime. I love it. I've walked 26 miles in the past 3 weeks. I'm getting around good now. I still have pain under and in my right breast as well as the ribs there. For the robotic surgery, they went in with about a 4" incision under my right breast. Trying to keep the pressure off the incision has been difficult. Everyday the pain lessons. I've only used Tylenol for pain. The other issue is have is a good size lump in my groin where they put me on the heart/lung machine. They said that would go away but it has not gotten any smaller. I'll get it checked out next visit. Medications are being tapered off and I should be off all by end of November. Life is good!!! Oh yea..... No palpitations or PVCs for the first time in 40 years.

Dr Trento did the procedure yesterday afternoon at Cedars Sinai Hospital. It was very successful. They moved me out of ICU a couple hours ago. I've walked around the nurses station with assistance I'll be taking another walk shortly. They removed 2 chest tubes. Everyone here has been a pleasure to be around. I highly recommend Dr. Trento and the Cedars team.

I'm heading to Cedars Sinai tomorrow for Covid test and Blood Typing test. I'll stay at a hotel tomorrow night near the hospital as I have to be there Tuesday morning 9:30 to get admitted. We live 2.5 hours from the hospital and I don't want to risk getting stuck in LA traffic. I'm doing pretty good. Have moments of panic but quickly calm myself down. I think the worst for me is the thought of laying there in the OR looking and everyone before we start. That scares the u-know-what out of me lol. Just read Steve Miller's post and his positive attitude brought some calmness tonight. We'll be in at the same time.