Introduction

[Doug]

Hi,
I found this site a couple of weeks ago and I want to say thank you to all of the people who have posted here. It has really help me in dealing with my doctors.

I am another Hodgkins survivor and had radiation treatment of the upper chest and abdomen in 1988 at the age of 32. I had a massive MI in 1996, a stent in 2002 and now I am looking at an aortic valve replacement with an artery bypass. I knew the valve was going bad, but in less than a year it went from moderate to severe. Now I know why I was tired and short of breath whenever I exert myself.

We hope to schedule surgery in the next couple of weeks, but my cardiologist was a little concerned about me being a little wheezy and sent me to a lung specialist. I had a cath at the end of Oct and ended up with a bout of pulmonary edema (that was an exciting 30 minutes) and I was still a little congested from that. But, now they want to do all kinds of tests before we can schedule the surgery.

When we do get it scheduled, I hope to have it at the Baylor Heart Hospital in Plano, TX.

 

[ShezaGirlie]

Hi Doug and welcome. Sounds like you've got a plan in the works. My valve also went south rather fast...age 55 seems to be a popular age for them needing replacement.

You're in that good black land farming area up there..!!

 

[catwoman]

Doug:

What surgeon are you looking at?

I would seriously consider William Ryan. I think he's at Baylor in Plano. He's also is at Dallas Presby some, I think, but moved his office over to Plano after he did my husband's MV repair in May 2007.

Dr. Ryan has operated on quite a few folks here. If I were to have surgery again, he'd be my first surgical consult.

 

[buncle]

Doug
This is a great place to learn about all things valves.I had surgery at Plano Heart Hospital on Sept 19th this year. If you have to have surgery it is a great place to have it.I always felt I was in very good hands.They have state of the art everything.

 

[ALCapshaw2]

Welcome Aboard Doug ! We have over 20 Radiation Survivors amongst our membership now.

Be sure to ask your surgeon about his experience dealing with Radiation Damage to the Heart which causes considerable Scar Tissue to form. Any surgeon with re-do experience should know what to expect and how to deal with it.

As Catwoman said, Dr. William Ryan is a very experienced and well known Heart Surgeon at Baylor.

'AL Capshaw'

 

[skeptic49]

Welonme to VR.com, Doug. Best of luck as you proceed toward your surgery.

Jim

 

[LuckyGuy]

Welcome, Doug, you'll find VR.com to be an incredible resource. It's one of the things I am grateful for this Thanksgiving!

I too am a Hodgkin's survivor, and if you've done any searching you know there are probably a dozen of us here.

I would want to second Al's adivce: let everybody know your valve was damaged due to radiation therapy. Have them look at your other valves as well. And if it were me, I'd be looking for a surgeon who has specific 'radiation heart' experience, or at the very least significant experience with reoperations, which have similar challenges (scarring) as first operations on irradiated hearts.

 

[AgilityDog]

Welcome aboard! There are quite a few of us in the DFW area. Baylor Plano is pretty cushy, and the food is decent, if you have to be there. I should know, I've been there twice, at both BHHP and BRMCP. The rooms (except ICU) are huge and private, and your spouse can stay the night if you are in a regular room -they have flip out couches in most rooms.

Once the holidays pass, I think it's time for us NTX locals to have a dinner....some night when I don't have dog class!

I think we're waiting for Nikki's twinlets to be big enough to come out to play, and for the swine flu season to pass.

I'll probably trip over you some day at Dr Ryan's /Dallas Heart Group office.

 

[Mentu]

Welcome aboard, Doug. Let us know if you have questions as there will almost certainly be someone on VR that has had a similar experience.

Larry

 

[hall]

Hi Doug and Welcome. Will look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[Duffey]

Hey Doug!
Welcome!

 

[Johan]

Welcome Doug.

 

[njean]

Welcome to VR & I wish you the very best with your upcoming surgery! I hope that having found us will put your mind somewhat at ease & we help make the wait a bit more bearable for you!

Wishing you the very best!

 

[Doug]

Thanks for the welcome everyone. I hope everybody is having a nice Thanksgiving. One nice thing about moving back to the Dallas area, from Houston, is we have family here.

I did consider Dr. Ryan, but my cardiologist thought Dr. Moore, one of Dr. Ryan's associates, would be a better fit for me.

I have an appointment with the surgeon on Monday and plan to ask him a bunch of questions based on the info I found on this site.

One thing I will say about the difference between prepping for this surgery and the prep before getting treated for Hodgkins is this has been a lot less painful so far. Preparing for the radiation treatment involved lymph node biopsies, bone marrow samples, having some teeth pulled, spleenectomy, and exploratory surgery. After all of that I had to go through 2 months of radiation.

At least none of the heart people have wanted to remove any body parts (yet!).

 

[deano89]

welcome doug ,this is a great community and it helped me so much on my rollercoaster ride! seems like your getting control and moving in the right direction good luck