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I'm so sorry it has taken me so long to post following my surgery, no problems medically, just extremely busy. Surgery at Mayo was on April 13, Wednesday and I flew home the following Monday, only five days post surgery. Surgery went well, though I did surprise them when they found a vsd after doing the myectomy. Dr. Zehr's first reaction was that he had created it but after putting me back on the heart/lung machine and going back in he noticed the hole had a mebrame around the edges and had been there since birth. He put several stitches in it and closed the major part of it off but it still needs to be watched just to be sure. The thickness of the septum evidently would close off the hole making it non-functional, so with years of echos, nuclear studies and heart caths it was never caught. Now, a question for those considering ablation over surgery, what would have happened when the alcohol reached that hole?
Anyway, recovery has been good, I was back at work in 6 weeks, for which my wife has been very thankful, and productivity at work is great. I spent last week up in MO helping to open up a new market for the company which a year ago I never thought would have happened. The daily episode of chest pain have disappeared and there has been no shortness of breath, even when I am out training my retriever, which used to be a major issue. Everyone comments on how much better my color is and the normal things of life are normal again.
I still get some sternal pain when I do certain motions IE, a sit up in bed, but nothing like after surgery. At St Marys the nurses kept telling me I wasn't using enough pain killer, but honestly, I did not need it. They gave me Oxycontin for use at home but I only used one each night to get to sleep and still have a full bottle left from May that I haven't touched.
Life after surgery is vastly superior to life before surgery. I Thank my God in heaven that he led me through this path. I also am now a firm believer in using a specialist to confirm your course of treatment. Thank you all for your prayers , they do work and once again, I am sorry it took me so long to get back on line to post.
On another line, my son Jeremy's defib was recalled in the medtronics fiasco. The ep who installed it left town in the interim so we returned him to my ep, who was extremely upset when he found out how Jeremy and the family had been treated. Said he would never have installed a defib the way the pediatric surgeon did and apologized for sending us to that hospital where the ped icu was. He did it for icu and he did not have privileges there. Jeremy was supposed to go back to the orig hospital when he was ready but the hospital took us to the medical ethics committee because we were against doing it there way. They made hundreds of thousands from the insurance co but we will not return to that hospital. Jeremy is currently doing fine, no more v-fib. His current defib is once again a guidant.
My guidant was part of the recall but only needed software changes which took about three minutes. Hope everyone is doing good, talk to you later.
Art
Anyway, recovery has been good, I was back at work in 6 weeks, for which my wife has been very thankful, and productivity at work is great. I spent last week up in MO helping to open up a new market for the company which a year ago I never thought would have happened. The daily episode of chest pain have disappeared and there has been no shortness of breath, even when I am out training my retriever, which used to be a major issue. Everyone comments on how much better my color is and the normal things of life are normal again.
I still get some sternal pain when I do certain motions IE, a sit up in bed, but nothing like after surgery. At St Marys the nurses kept telling me I wasn't using enough pain killer, but honestly, I did not need it. They gave me Oxycontin for use at home but I only used one each night to get to sleep and still have a full bottle left from May that I haven't touched.
Life after surgery is vastly superior to life before surgery. I Thank my God in heaven that he led me through this path. I also am now a firm believer in using a specialist to confirm your course of treatment. Thank you all for your prayers , they do work and once again, I am sorry it took me so long to get back on line to post.
On another line, my son Jeremy's defib was recalled in the medtronics fiasco. The ep who installed it left town in the interim so we returned him to my ep, who was extremely upset when he found out how Jeremy and the family had been treated. Said he would never have installed a defib the way the pediatric surgeon did and apologized for sending us to that hospital where the ped icu was. He did it for icu and he did not have privileges there. Jeremy was supposed to go back to the orig hospital when he was ready but the hospital took us to the medical ethics committee because we were against doing it there way. They made hundreds of thousands from the insurance co but we will not return to that hospital. Jeremy is currently doing fine, no more v-fib. His current defib is once again a guidant.
My guidant was part of the recall but only needed software changes which took about three minutes. Hope everyone is doing good, talk to you later.
Art
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