Hi all!
I'm starting this thread because my wife needs heart surgery very soon and as we get closer it'd be great to be able to ask questions from others to make sure we don't make any silly mistakes.
She was born with ALCAPA - Anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery, which is quite rare. She had one failed operation in 1987 at age 13, resulting in two heart attacks shortly afterwards, followed immediately with a second surgery at a different hospital which was a success (LIMA/LAD bypass and re-establishment of a two coronary system).
She's in her late 30's now and for the past 10 years or so has been getting progressively more tired and down. Constant arrhythmia (ventricular ectopics) began in 2000 suddenly one morning and are present all day every day. We found out recently that she has a cleft of the posterior leaflet of her mitral valve - also very rare!
She currently has an EF of about 55, mild MVP and severe mitral valve regurgitation of 80%. I was quite annoyed by this because although we knew she had a murmor, we never knew it was already at the "severe" level at the time of the last echo in 2008.
In fact, some doctors at Brighton have recently told her she could get pregnant, run a marathon, etc... Until last week when a different one said she should be resting and be doing nothing strenuous!
We've seen some consultants, had some tests and surgery should be on the near term horizon. Not been given a reason that it can't be repaired (vs replaced) as yet, so hopefully a repair is possible.
We're going to Newcastle in the next couple of weeks to meet the cardiologist who oversaw her previous operation.
Hopefully the step after that will be to see a surgeon or two!
Si
I'm starting this thread because my wife needs heart surgery very soon and as we get closer it'd be great to be able to ask questions from others to make sure we don't make any silly mistakes.
She was born with ALCAPA - Anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery, which is quite rare. She had one failed operation in 1987 at age 13, resulting in two heart attacks shortly afterwards, followed immediately with a second surgery at a different hospital which was a success (LIMA/LAD bypass and re-establishment of a two coronary system).
She's in her late 30's now and for the past 10 years or so has been getting progressively more tired and down. Constant arrhythmia (ventricular ectopics) began in 2000 suddenly one morning and are present all day every day. We found out recently that she has a cleft of the posterior leaflet of her mitral valve - also very rare!
She currently has an EF of about 55, mild MVP and severe mitral valve regurgitation of 80%. I was quite annoyed by this because although we knew she had a murmor, we never knew it was already at the "severe" level at the time of the last echo in 2008.
In fact, some doctors at Brighton have recently told her she could get pregnant, run a marathon, etc... Until last week when a different one said she should be resting and be doing nothing strenuous!
We've seen some consultants, had some tests and surgery should be on the near term horizon. Not been given a reason that it can't be repaired (vs replaced) as yet, so hopefully a repair is possible.
We're going to Newcastle in the next couple of weeks to meet the cardiologist who oversaw her previous operation.
Hopefully the step after that will be to see a surgeon or two!
Si
