My husband's AVR surgery on Fri 10/22

[BSastry]

Hi,
My husband, Aruna, is having his AVR surgery on Fri, 10/22. He has bicuspid aortic valve that is stenosed and has to be replaced. He has absolutely no symptoms but because the valve area is getting very small (0.6 sq cms) and also the pressure in the aorta is very high, hence the surgery.
He is 46 yrs old and will be getting St Jude mechanical valve and of course , will be on coumadin after the surgery.

He had his cath on Sep 21 and they did not find any blockages. For the past several years he has been having echo every 6 months and is on BP medication and aspirin.
We have 2 kids - 13 yr old girl and 7 yr old boy. We live in Atlanta Ga and the surgery will be at Emory university hospital. We will be going to the hospital on Thur for pre-op tests, which will probably be 3-4 hrs. They said that we will be meeting with the anesthesiologist on that day. We might have to go very early on Fri for the surgery.

I want to let every body know that VR.com has been a big help. and all the wonderful people I've met here have been very helpful. But as the days are passing by and as we are getting closer to the big day, we are getting very nervous.

-Bharati.

 

[Bryan B]

Bharati,

It's very normal to be getting nervous right about now. The waiting was the hardest part for me, and the last week in particular before my surgery it was hard to think about anything else. One thing I would like to share is that on my pre-op day and the morning of the surgery I was strangely more calm than I expected myself to be. I was glad I was the first case of the day. I was still half asleep as my parents drove me to the hospital, and by the time I was starting to wake up they started my IV and gave me the "good stuff" and I didn't have a care in the world after that. The next thing I remember was waking up in ICU about 8 hours later...it seemed like only a few minutes had passed since I had been talking to the staff as they were prepping me. After that things moved quickly and I was walking the next morning, and was discharged and back at home 3 days later.