I had my post op appt. with the surgeon yesterday and he says everything is looking great! I do have a slight pleural rub that they think will go away with time. When I take a deep breathe and hold it my valve is really loud and thumps hard, but nothing to worry about, just something I noticed. The valve noise doesn't bother me unless I am alone in my bedroom trying to fall asleep. It is not really loud it just has a metallic tingy tick to it that gets into my head and gives me a headache sometimes. Any other time during the day I don't even notice my valve ticking. i think i will get over this eventually though, it's just a new sound to get use to. I am not on any pain meds for the past week now. The surgeon told me yesterday he wants my INR at 2.0-2.5 which is lower then the original 2.5-3.5 we were shooting for. This is good because i am at 1.9 now and he says that is about perfect for the on-x. Coumadin is such a non issue! I am so glad i listened to all of your posts about it and I have no regrets about getting my metal valve either. I feel like I have his durable piece of equipment that i should never have to worry about again. I would definitely be regretting it if I got a tissue valve knowing I would be going through all of this again one day and counting down the years till my valve wore out. I feel like I have been consumed for the past year by worrying about when my heart will be bad enough for surgery. Now I feel this big release like I've made it over a huge mountain and I can move forward with my life now. I didn't know I was so down about all of this until I was "up". Thank you God!
One more little story. When I asked the doc about whether it was my muscle I could see in the top open part of my incision he said it was fatty tissue. Then he stuck the stick end od a cotton swab in it and swirled it around to loosen it up so the edges could stick back together with a butterfly stitch. When he was doing all of this poking and swirling he asked if it hurt. I said "I don't know let me put a stick in the fatty tissue of a hole in your chest and we'll see how you feel?!". Was kinda funny at the time, maybe you had to be there. It didn't hurt much.
One more little story. When I asked the doc about whether it was my muscle I could see in the top open part of my incision he said it was fatty tissue. Then he stuck the stick end od a cotton swab in it and swirled it around to loosen it up so the edges could stick back together with a butterfly stitch. When he was doing all of this poking and swirling he asked if it hurt. I said "I don't know let me put a stick in the fatty tissue of a hole in your chest and we'll see how you feel?!". Was kinda funny at the time, maybe you had to be there. It didn't hurt much.
Hope you continue your recovery and get back to full strength soon!
