Stanley's Guestbook

I believe Dr. El-Hamamsy will be taking over Ross procedures in the future. And I believe he played a pivotal role in getting my repair done. This is his profile: "https://profiles.mountsinai.org/ismail-el-hamamsy" And this is the paper that outlines how well patients have done compared to other procedures: "https://www.researchgate.net/publication/358764435_Propensity-Matched_Comparison_of_the_Ross_Procedure_and_Prosthetic_Aortic_Valve_Replacement_in_Adults". FYI, they only did the repair since they would at least last me about 20 years. Otherwise they would have done the repair. Hope this helps!

That was my other question was I saw your surgeon was dr. Stelzer but you mentioned Dr. El-Hamamsy was part of your surgery. I wonder which surgeon would I make the consult appt with? Would you share your cardiologist name? My daughter is seeing Dr. Matt Lewis from Columbia Presby who she is fond of, but always good to get a second opinion. Since diagnosis, it stayed at mod/severe regurgitiation, Her ejection fraction is right at borderline and her heart is enlarged, and asymtomatic. She was a swimmer (we live in Central NJ) but she gained so much weight since. We are trying to delay the surgery as long as possible. You must be thrilled you got it repaired. I wish I was able to and hope my daughter can too. Now, I'm worried about stroke risk for myself b/c of paroxymal afib, and even more worried about my daughter since she got diagnosed at a younger age, it really caused alot of mental and emotional strain on her. I'm sure it weighed on you all these years as well. Thanks for your insights. Connie Lau

Yeah... It's not easy being diagnosed early. It's like having a weight hanging over your head. But good thing is she's young and athletic. Having symptoms is very unlikely when you are young. You need to have a doctor to know when to pull the trigger for the surgery. Dr. Stelzer told me that the heart will contract back to normal after surgery. That bought me some time and gave me some relief because every other cardiologist/surgeon will tell you to do the surgery immediately once they see severe regurgitation. Symptomatically I was fine. I just knew I wasn't ever going to win a stamina race compared to others. As long as we did an echo every 6 months, we should be able to catch the right time to do the surgery. When it came time to decided to do the surgery, there were some numbers that didn't look right. We did a Cardiac MRI to quantify how severe my aortic regurgitation was leaking. The LV systolic volume was 79 ml/m/s and the diastolic volume was 195 ml/m/s. Compared to a normal heart, the diastolic should be at about 80 ml/m/s. My heart was enlarging almost 3 times as much just to compensate for my regurgitation My doctor gave me 6 months to plan a date for surgery and I decided to do it and put this behind me. **Conclusion** Time will tell how my heart operates and how much my heart will contract back to normal. It can take a year before I see some results. It seems that the Cardiac MRI was the nail in the coffin that signed my date for surgery. **Your Questions** Which surgeon to schedule appointment with? I think El-Hamamsy would be a good bet moving forward. Paul Stelzer is my surgeon and was a great guy and had great bedside manner. However, he's like to step down soon for retirement. El-Hamamsy will be the head for Ross and Repairs along with the next upcoming generation. What cardiologist do I use? I am in the middle of switching cardiologists. Unfortunately my insurance no longer takes my former cardiologist, Dr. Eric Kirschner. When picking a cardiologist, I think it's important to have someone who understands and is familiar with the surgeries you are about to do. Kirschner was familiar with Stelzer's work. However in my experience, most of the surgeons knew more about the health outcomes and the details of the surgeries you will have. I gained much more knowledge and clarity by meeting the surgeons rather than my cardiologists. My cardiologists would test me on echos and tell me I belonged in the severe regurgitation category and it was no question that I had to do surgery. Hope this helps Connie. If you want a call to help answer some questions or get some feedback, I'm free to share. I think it's empowering to know other people's experience with the surgery. We can exchange details over email: scheong78@gmail.com Kind regards, Stanley