Eric's Posts

Sooooo.... I met with the surgeon for the first time yesterday, as we discussed the procedure and some of my risks, I was taken back a bit that my recovery may take twice as long as others due to a large amount of radiation treatments I got nearly 30 years ago in my chest area. He told me the breast plate will take quite a bit longer to heal as well as there may be some slightly damaged tissue inside the chest still that could also make the recovery more difficult. I would love to hear from anyone that has had mantle radiation treatments at some point and then had to go thru OHS and how your recovery went. The second thing that I wanted to ask this group is what your opinion is on mechanical vs tissue Artial Valves. My Cardiologist had talked mostly about mechanical, but the surgeon is leaning more toward a cow tissue valve. I have been reading some studies on the two, but I would like to hear from some others, mostly of what life is like on blood thinners, that seems to be the biggest life change in going with a mechanical valve.