M
Marge
Have not been back for a while. A couple of reasons:
(1) I really didn't want to think about this valve business for a while, and (2) actually, nothing heart related has happened to me for a while.
In non-heart news, I had a nice vacation in August in Santa Fe and we're going to Mexico in November. My husband had his long-delayed knee replacement operation in late June (he was supposed to have had it before my valve surgery!) and he is recovering -- more slowly than we hoped because it turned out the operation was more complex than most knee operations (due to previous operations, scarring, etc.) but according to his surgeon he is ahead of where she thought he would be at this point.
I hope everybody is OK, and I plan to hang here a bit and catch up with news, but in the meanwhile I have a question! About the TEE test.
Yes, I know the TEE has often been discussed here, and I tried to do a search, but I probably didn't go about it properly, and I didn't get anything helpful so am throwing myself on the collective mercy of the board. I know what it involves, of course, but I'd welcome personal experience of what it actually feels lik to have one. I am supposed to have one on Oct. 27. I never had one prior to my surgery; the only ones I've had were during/after surgery and I was not conscious at the time.
Am sure not looking forward to prospect of tube stuck down my throat, etc. Does the anesthetic they use REALLY numb you so you don't feel it? Do they REALLY give you enough sedative to relax you? I am breaking into a sweat just thinking about it, so I am counting on the sedative.
As for why I am having a TEE anyway -- well, since my mitral repair in February of this year (2004) I have had an echocardiagram -- in late June -- which showed that the regurgitation has started up (my surgeon said he had stopped it) and that I now have mitral stenosis as well (which I didn't have before the surgery or if I did nobody told me about it).
There is some dispute about what the echo really shows. The cardio who did the original analysis wrote that the regurge was "mild to moderate," and the stenosis was "moderate to severe." My own cardio says that after looking at the echo himself he thinks the regurge is only mild, and he doesn't seem too worried about the stenosis either. He says anterior leaflet is mostly immobile but posterior leaflet has "pretty good mobility." (Or maybe the other way around?) The echo also supposedly showed an EF of 30 -- the same as the cardiac cath I had in December but substantially down from the EF I supposedly had when I was discharged from the hospital (45). My current cardio thinks the 45 was possibly an artificially high figure due to whatever IV drugs I was getting at the hospital that were stimulating my heart function. He thinks that as long as the EF is no WORSE than it was in December I am doing OK. He also thinks the stenosis (if there is stenosis) may be a function of what was done during the repair itself.
This current cardio is a new guy (I mean, new to me) who replaced my former cardio when he moved away. This cardio says he is more concerned with "symptoms" and how I feel than tests and figures. Right now I feel fine, but I wonder if he may be one of those cardios who wants to put intervention off and off and off until you do develop bad symptoms and you have sustained real damage.
Anyway, I persuaded him I really do want to know what is going on. I also told him that if the repair wasn't successful and if I need another surgery and a replacement instead, I would rather have it sooner than later. (He hemmed and hawed a bit & talked about the "risks" of second surgery.)
He has had me do a MUGA test (supposed to give us more information on the heart function and the EF). I don't know the results of that yet. The next thing is this TEE, and then we will send the results to my surgeon for a consultation with him. So that is where I stand now.
(1) I really didn't want to think about this valve business for a while, and (2) actually, nothing heart related has happened to me for a while.
In non-heart news, I had a nice vacation in August in Santa Fe and we're going to Mexico in November. My husband had his long-delayed knee replacement operation in late June (he was supposed to have had it before my valve surgery!) and he is recovering -- more slowly than we hoped because it turned out the operation was more complex than most knee operations (due to previous operations, scarring, etc.) but according to his surgeon he is ahead of where she thought he would be at this point.
I hope everybody is OK, and I plan to hang here a bit and catch up with news, but in the meanwhile I have a question! About the TEE test.
Yes, I know the TEE has often been discussed here, and I tried to do a search, but I probably didn't go about it properly, and I didn't get anything helpful so am throwing myself on the collective mercy of the board. I know what it involves, of course, but I'd welcome personal experience of what it actually feels lik to have one. I am supposed to have one on Oct. 27. I never had one prior to my surgery; the only ones I've had were during/after surgery and I was not conscious at the time.
Am sure not looking forward to prospect of tube stuck down my throat, etc. Does the anesthetic they use REALLY numb you so you don't feel it? Do they REALLY give you enough sedative to relax you? I am breaking into a sweat just thinking about it, so I am counting on the sedative.
As for why I am having a TEE anyway -- well, since my mitral repair in February of this year (2004) I have had an echocardiagram -- in late June -- which showed that the regurgitation has started up (my surgeon said he had stopped it) and that I now have mitral stenosis as well (which I didn't have before the surgery or if I did nobody told me about it).
There is some dispute about what the echo really shows. The cardio who did the original analysis wrote that the regurge was "mild to moderate," and the stenosis was "moderate to severe." My own cardio says that after looking at the echo himself he thinks the regurge is only mild, and he doesn't seem too worried about the stenosis either. He says anterior leaflet is mostly immobile but posterior leaflet has "pretty good mobility." (Or maybe the other way around?) The echo also supposedly showed an EF of 30 -- the same as the cardiac cath I had in December but substantially down from the EF I supposedly had when I was discharged from the hospital (45). My current cardio thinks the 45 was possibly an artificially high figure due to whatever IV drugs I was getting at the hospital that were stimulating my heart function. He thinks that as long as the EF is no WORSE than it was in December I am doing OK. He also thinks the stenosis (if there is stenosis) may be a function of what was done during the repair itself.
This current cardio is a new guy (I mean, new to me) who replaced my former cardio when he moved away. This cardio says he is more concerned with "symptoms" and how I feel than tests and figures. Right now I feel fine, but I wonder if he may be one of those cardios who wants to put intervention off and off and off until you do develop bad symptoms and you have sustained real damage.
Anyway, I persuaded him I really do want to know what is going on. I also told him that if the repair wasn't successful and if I need another surgery and a replacement instead, I would rather have it sooner than later. (He hemmed and hawed a bit & talked about the "risks" of second surgery.)
He has had me do a MUGA test (supposed to give us more information on the heart function and the EF). I don't know the results of that yet. The next thing is this TEE, and then we will send the results to my surgeon for a consultation with him. So that is where I stand now.
