Thomas's Posts

My date of surgery was October 8, 2020. Im coming up on the one year anniversary of my surgery. The surgery accomplished three things. My team of surgeons and doctors replaced my aortic valve with the Edwards Life Sciences Inspiris Resilia aortic valve. This valve is made of bovine pericardium tissue, and is designed to facilitate minimally invasive valve in valve replacement in the event I live long enough to wear this one out. They by passed one artery, and repaired an aneurysm.Everything went well and my doctors are very happy with the results of my surgery and my recovery to this point. I'm running five miles approximately four, sometimes five days each week. I can't run as fast or as far as I used to, which is a bit frustrating to me because my heart is theoretically better and more efficient than at any time in my life since my birth. I believe I could perform better but I'm on 200 mg's of metropolol per day which is a beta blocker that is designed to lower my heart rate. I can only run as fast as my max bpm allows. I'll discuss lowering the dosage with my cardiologist at my next appointment in December. Maybe I don't even need to take that medication anymore, I don't know. My resting bpm was 58 at my family doctor last week, so looking good! I hope you all are doing well. Keep the faith, eat right, get enough sleep, say your prayers, and make sure you get some good excercise. Life is good, but even so strive to make it a little better every day!

For those of you about to undergo heart surgery in the near future, I am posting this to inform you of post surgery realities. There are some things you may expect and other things you may not expect. This post is not designed to scare you, rather it is designed to reassure you believe it or not. I was terrified of undergoing this surgery, and many here spoke words of encouragement to me which meant a lot. But no matter how scared I was, NOT having surgery was NOT an option. Without this surgery I would have had less than a year to live. To me, that is prospect was way scarier than thoughts of this massive open heart surgery. That having been said here is the reality of my surgery and most likely yours as well:The most important thing I've learned since my surgery two weeks ago is to NEVER lose faith. There will be times when you will. These surgeries are tough stuff, and hospitals are NO as in ZERO fun. You can't sleep, you won't want to eat, they will not let you take a shower, some medicines will make you vomit or dry heave, and other delights that you will discover. But I tell you this because no matter how bad it gets you WILL feel better, you WILL be discharged, and your doctor WILL fix your heart. Depression is a thing. It will most likely visit you. Don't fight it! Embrace it and just cry cry cry. Crying helped me so much! The relief crying brought me was very comforting and necessary. Did you ever think that you would hsee a guy openly talk about the benefits of crying? LOL me neither, but here we are. Remember - THIS TOO SHALL PASS, and it will. And when it does you will be much much better than you were before you had your operation! So don't lose faith, you've got this. God bless!

Hi guys! I wanted to apologize to you all. There is a guestbook that I haven't opened in two weeks and when I stumbled across it, I saw so many post from so long ago wishing me well before my surgery. And I hadn't responded to any of those posts! In my defense I'm not the most computer saavy and alot of times I log on to this website on my phone which makes it even worse for me to navigate all these links. That having been said, THANKS TO ALL FOR YOUR LOVE SUPPORT AND PRAYERS, even if I'm seeing them at such a late date.