Trevor's Posts

The month of June has come and gone, and from my perspective it was extremely productive. I had my one month check up this last Wednesday up in Madison, which was my last meeting with Dr. DeOliveira. From now on, I am free from meeting with a surgeon until this valve calcifies, which we are expecting to be anywhere from 10-15 years from now. But who wants to think that far down the road anyway. Who knows what kind of operation I will actually have then. The weather has been beautiful here in Rockford and I have taken advantage of it. Yesterday was my 1 month anniversary of my surgery and I spent it going to the pool. The scar is healing a lot quicker than what I thought it would, but my surgeon reminded me that the scar is just like new baby's skin so it can burn incredibly easy. No problems yet, SPF 30 seems to do the job. I had someone about my age to come up to me and comment that she had a scar just like mine. It's fun to meet others who have had the same thing! When I first met Dr. DeOliveira for my initial appointment 1 year ago, one of the things I loved about him is that he always showed me pictures of what he does during surgery. He had always promised me that he would take pictures during my surgery. In my amazement, he printed out 3 great pictures of my diseased aortic valve and my brand new healthy bovine pericardial valve during my surgery. What a difference! I will try somehow to get the pictures on here, but as of right now I only have hard copies of them. A picture says a thousand words but these even go beyond that. What was happening with my own aortic valve was that it wasn't closing enough, as you can see in one of the pictures. The edges of the valve were very thick and looked like they didn't fit together. A normal, healthy valve should look like tissue paper - very thin with a perfect "Mercedes-Benz" logo that fits together without a gap. The edges of a healthy valve are extremely thin and flexible. My valve was "thick and floppy". His pictures of my valve will now be showcased in his lectures that he does for the medical school and from what he said, the "fish mouth" appearance is a classic textbook case of a bicuspid aortic valve. I hope these pictures can help some future doctors! Although everything has gone very smooth so far, I did have some questions when I went for my appointment. If there has been one thing that I could complain about, it has been a skipping or the feeling of an extra beat every so often. I found out that these are called PAC's and PVC's, standing for pre-atrial contractions and pre-ventricular contractions. What I am feeling is a PAC, and it is nothing to be too alarmed about. The electrical activity at the top of my heart (the atrias) is still a little bit irritated from surgery, so there is an extra firing from a nerve coming from somewhere else that starts an extra heartbeat. It is of no worry to me since I feel fine and they said that it would go away with time. I guess it also helps to keep your potassium levels up. I want to wish everyone a very happy 4th of July weekend! My biggest interests are in the food eating contests and fireworks. Hope everyone enjoys their weekend!!!

I can't believe it but today marks 3 weeks with my new bovine valve. So far, so good except I've noticed I have a new liking for cows. It was a little awkward on Father's day eating a steak since I have a new brotherhood with them. The cow jokes never get old for me. Yesterday I went in for my first work out session at the rehab center and I loved it. There is definitely a positive, upbeat attitude in the room because everyone has the same goal in mind of getting their hearts back in shape. After getting hooked up to the monitor, I did 10 minutes on the treadmill and 10 minutes on the recumbent bike. There is a standardized scale that they use to gauge how hard the exercise is which they call the BORG scale. The ideal area of exercise is in the light to somewhat hard region, which I believe is 11-13 on the scale. After the bike I did some cool down laps and then about 10 minutes of stretching. I had a great time. Although most people don't see working out as a fun thing to do, this was definitely fun for me. My nurse was telling me that all of the other rehab patients were asking "what's with the young kid?" while I was working out which I got a good laugh out of. It was only my first day, I'm willing to bet I'll be sharing my story with everyone in there pretty soon. As far as the rest of the recovery process, I am still hanging out in my recliner for most of the day. Luckily I have gotten plenty of good books from friends and family that help pass the time. The Seinfeld DVD's that I bought are coming in pretty handy too. I am still reluctant to sleep in my bed yet because my incision is still pretty sore. I just don't know if I would be able to shift my body weight enough to get in or out of bed. The good thing is that I have learned how to sleep really good in the recliner. Thanks to everyone who gave me the advice on the recliner vs. bed. If there's one thing this process of healing teaches, its patience. I have learned that the body does a good job at telling you if you are doing too much. The recovery process is extremely individual. When looking at the big picture, all that matters is that the progress is going in the right direction.

Hey Everybody! I am 2 weeks post-op today and I am feeling great so far. Today I went in for my initial assessment at the cardiac rehab center. I am very excited about starting this program. It is a really nice place with a lot of equipment and the staff seems so organized. I am in the 4:00 class that meets Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I am told that this is the class for "younger" patients :). I am also meeting with a dietitian to control sodium intake and things like that. It is really cool to put down goals that I would like to accomplish both long term and short term. They will have me doing at least 45 minutes of cardiac exercise by the time I will be going back to school. That is very exciting to me! The cool thing is that I am hooked up to a heart monitor at all times so the nurses can see if my heart rate is too high or too low whenever I am working out. When I first mentioned that I wanted to do a cardiac rehab program to my doctor's a while back, they weren't too excited for me because they told me that I would be bored with it. The really cool thing about my program is that this is going to be specific to me and my age so that I will go at my pace and progress up to what I used to be able to. All of the staff told me that they have high expectations - I guess they want to get my butt back in to shape! I do have one burning question for my fellow zipper chest friends on here - how long did you sleep in a recliner? I am 2 weeks post-op now and I am still a little stiff to get into bed. I am sleeping great on the recliner, but I was just wondering if I should move to a bed soon. Other than that, things are going great and I am continuing to make good progress!