Jane's Posts

Question - can anyone help? I was due to have SAVR (minimal access) on 23 November, but at the end of a October I had a GI bleed which was caused by three stomach ulcers, found when they took me in to hospital. It was a very frightening experience but I was even more upset when I was told by my heart surgeon that he could not operate until the ulceration was completely healed - a minimum of eight weeks. The reason he gave me was that they have to give you so much anti coagulation during the valve replacement that any kind of cut in the stomach can bleed profusely and potentially be very dangerous. I am due to have the repeat camera tests to check the ulcers in the next couple of weeks, but my heart symptoms are now very severe and I NEED the new valve ASAP. I am suffering with extreme anxiety and am struggling to function at all. I am in the UK and we have a different relationship with our surgeons here and it is not possible to ask questions the way you guys in the US are able to. I am terrified that they are going to say my stomach isn’t healed or that there is something else wrong and I wondered if anyone on here has had any kind of similar experience? I also wonder if I could have a a TAVR if they can’t operate? I am so debilitated by my AS now that it is hard to do anything and I am becoming more and more frightened by the day. Did anyone else keep thinking about dying? I keep thinking about it all the time and can’t find anyone to talk to about what I am facing - I am well aware that I sound completely self absorbed but I have two daughters and two disabled sisters and no other family.

Hi everyone, I am posting this today because I am feeling in a state of terrible panic. Firstly I live in the UK so patient choice is not the same as in the USA - I have severe aortic stenosis and persistent A fib, and need surgery ASAP. I am sixty years old and weigh 300lbs and am 5ft 9ins tall. All of the doctors here go on about my weight and it is just making me more and more scared of having the operation. I have found a surgeon who will do it via right anterior thoracotomy, and there is also someone who will do a TAVR. I have very bad arthritis in my legs and am worried about mobilising after the operation and think, for this reason, that a TAVR might be better as I will be up and about quicker but I don't know. I worry about the risk of stroke with a TAVR as my valve is quite severely calcified. Can anyone give me some advice or reassurance? Is anyone out there a big person like me? I feel so selfish being so worried and panicky and try so hard to keep things in control, but now I have another problem that I have got a problem in that I took NSAID tablets for my arthritis which is not advised with my blood thinner, but the pain was so severe that I went ahead and got some. I ended up having a really bad tummy and my stools were all black and purple (although I had eaten a ton of stewed blueberries and taken ferrous sulphate) and now I am freaking out that they won't operate or that I have cancer as well. I'm so very sorry that this post is so long and rambling but I have no one to talk to about it because I only have my daughters and I don't want to go to my friends. Is anyone fat like me? Has anyone had a TAVR? I am making myself ill worrying about it - I have two kids (ages 20 and 22) who live with me and need me and the thought of leaving them is just so upsetting to me. I am so torn.