Hello All,
Thought I would provide anyone who posted in this thread an update. First, a great many thanks to all who answered this thread and this forum for all of the support that it provides. On October 14th my mom went into The Pennsylvania State University Medical Center in Hershey. Her surgery was scheduled to occur on the 16th. Due to an emergency transplant that her surgeon had to perform, her surgery was pushed to the 17th. On the 17th, Dr. Walter Pae, the head of cardiac surgery, performed the operation to remove her failing mechanical valve and install a new, organic valve. I am very thankful and happy to say that the operation was a success. According to Dr. Pae, the mechanical valve was only about 30% sealed/attached. He didn't want to talk about the other surgeon's work, but it was pretty plain from his demeanor that he felt that he cleaned up somebody else's mess. The difference between her first surgery and her second was night and day. After her first surgery, my mother remained unconscious and on a ventilator for more than 24 hours. She remained sedated for almost another day after that and was in the hospital for 10 days. After this surgery, she was only required assistance in breathing for about 5 hours afterwards and was awake in under 12 hours. Her surgery occurred later in the day on the 17th and after seeing her into the ICU that evening my father and I went home to get a little rest. You can imagine our surprise when we returned at 6AM the following morning to see her quite awake and having a bit of breakfast. She left the hospital 5 days later. She is now in her 2nd month of PT and reports the treadmill on an incline to be her greatest foe (a real "bugger" she calls it). She has had 2 instances of A Fib since the surgery, but they were both in October and the past two months she has shown no other problems. Her prognosis is for a full recovery. She is no longer on coumadin and reports to be happy that she no longer can hear her valve before she goes to sleep.
I realized that I had not posted anything about her progress, so for anyone who was interested, I wanted to share this. Thank you again for all your support and information. I am glad to have this happy news to share
