Wow Les, you had a close call. My mom was having pains in her chest area and her doctor did a test or two but concluded that it was arthritis pain in her chest bone. This was back in 1987, and women did not get the attention that men did - one night she called me complaining again about the pain and I said "Enough's enough." I took her in to ER immediately and of course she had a heart attack. She was in the hospital that night and next, and then they did an angio and said "She is going in this afternoon. She has 3 blockages of 95%. So she didn't have much time to think about it, and as I said, she was 79 and did fine.
Before my mitral valve surgery I had the 64-slice CT scan with contrast dye. Has anyone here had that? It is less invasive than the angiogram and VERY easy to have done, but gives very clear pictures of the heart/vessels. Turned out I had no calcifications or blockages so they did not have to do an angio. My surgeon likes to keep these kinds of tests as non-invasive as possible. He did not order a TEE in advance either, though some do. He waited until I was sedated on the table, and he did warn me that if they felt my valve was NOT repairable, that they would be replacing it, so I had to choose the kind of valve I preferred and I chose a bio valve (I believe it was the newest porcine type. I was afraid would be hearing the mechanical one too much. :) But lucky lucky for me, he was able to repair my own valve, even though he said it was more complicated than they expected.
Anyway, Les I wanted to ask you something, I notice your tag is "desertwoman." I write for a publication called The Desert Woman over here in Palm Springs area, and my name is also Leslie. ;) I use my initials online.
Lil
hi im gooing in for bypass and aortic valve replacement.. .i had two choices up here we got the cow tissue which that cant gurarantee how long it last could be from 6 months to 15 yrs u dont need blood thinners...and for my age if i had to have one in 10 yrs it might not be good....the mechanical i choose is life time but there is risk of infection u have watch cutting yourself and u r on blood thinners rest life cause your blood has to be thiinner then your own blood... i dont think i could handle another operation..... waht is a bio valve if dont mind me asking....
Hi, Lil , Yes, way too close , the Dr's were frantic, they weren't used to someone trying to get out of it at the very last moment ! I was terrified,due to the awful experience that happened with my Mom in 1999 ,after her angio and bypass , I never wanted to go there . My Mom was 75, and she went into cardiac arrest during the angio, and they nicked an atery and she nearly bled to death .She went into a coma and was on life support for a long time . My case was entirely different , and I came out of it far better than she did , but I didn't know it would be different of me, all I could think of was what happened to her .
Yes, I had the 64 slice scan, they messed it up though, and part of it was so blurry they couldn't read it .I did show calcium, but not an extraordinary amount . What a coincidence, Lil , that your name is Leslie too, and that your publication is Desertwoman , wow !! What is it about ?
Les