Tag: COE

Month Two

Yesterday marked two months with my remarkable new heart. It has been a time of trial and error; tests, tests and more test; a time for new goals and achievements. This has also been a time of a lot of ups and downs. Thankfully, mostly ups.

I was able to begin a formal outpatient rehab program! That was exciting for me, as anytime I exerted with my old heart, I would go into even more arrhythmias than normal. So being able to be monitored while exerting helps reset my mindset. It has been so very nice watching the monitor and just seeing sinus tach and not tons of multifocal pvc’s! Today at the red center here in the hotel, I was able to go 42 minutes and peddled 7.4 miles. Doesn’t sound like much, does it. But considering 2 months ago, I had a hard time walking to the mailbox without stopping several times, it’s a huge improvement. I go go outpatient rehab m-w-f and still go to inpatient on Tuesday and Thursday. It forces me to get out every day. I am now walking to and from the hospital before and after my appointments. Again, it’s not a huge distance, but it is more than I would have been able to do before. THANK YOU DONOR!

I also had my fifth and sixth biopsies. So far, all my results have been 1r. So low grade infection that will continued to be monitored, but no changes in my medication routine. I have had weekly blood work. Unfortunately, we have had to do some constant adjustments with my tacrolimus, as my levels continue to jump all over the place. I’ve been told that this is very normal as my body adjusts to my new heart and my body settles in with the new drugs. Because of the high dose of prednisone and tacrolimus, I do have the shakes. It especially rears it’s head when I use fine motor skills. Trying to drink from a glass or write anything with a pen has been challenging, to say the least. I’ve been told, it will improve as I start decreasing the prednisone. And hopefully, that will happen next month when I come in for my next biopsy. I can just see myself standing in front of a patient to draw them, and my hand shaking holding the needle!

During this past month, I also met with a few new team members. I added a sleep disorder doc and a pulmonologist to my ever growing list of specialists. I pushed for both, as I’m still having problems with my lungs and my sats dropping,especially at night and when I am under exertion. I will be doing another sleep study this coming week (so not looking forward to that!). So will see what those results will show. Did I get rid of the central sleep apnea as my heart failure doc was hoping? Luckily, the testing will be done here at the hotel I am staying at, but up one more floor. So at least I won’t have to travel far, nor figure out how to get there! Sleep continues to elude me….whether from drugs or breathing issues, I guess we’ll find out next week.

I also met with the pulmonologist last week. He ordered some breathing test to measure my lung capacity. Good news is, I’m not making things up! Bad news is, I have a paralyzed left diaphragm. It has actually caused my breathing tests to be about 40% less than they were 18 months ago when I was testing to get listed. Also, when I lay flat, my numbers are greater than 25% less than when I am sitting. Not good for either. I know for any open heart procedure, they must cut the phrenic nerve (the nerve that works the diaphragm), and this is my second open heart surgery. So I asked if this could be the issue. He said more than likely. However, I was having issues with my sats dropping starting about 6 weeks before I got my call. Since I never had the appointment with a pulmonologist before transplant, we don’t know the reason. It could have just simply been that my heart was failing faster than we thought and with my blood pressure being so low, I just wasn’t being perfused appropriately. We may never know. He did have me meet with a respiratory therapist to give me a new little toy to play with. This one is called an inspiratory muscle trainer. It is supposed to help strengthen the surrounding muscles to help with breathing. Kind of assisting the diaphragm in its job, as it hopefully begins to recover. I asked if this was a common occurrence after open heart. He says for him it is, but this is what he does, so he sees a lot of it. But, in the overall scheme of things with all the surgeries done, it’s relatively rare. Lucky me! He did say to continue with rehab, as movement will definitely help.

So, as of right now, I am scheduled to go home next weekend..lord willing and the creek don’t rise! But of course, long term weather shows that there is supposed to be a huge winter storm hitting pretty much our whole route home!

Lou has been working hard on getting the house as germ free ready as possible. He will be working with a plumber next week to get a UV water filtration system installed, as we are on well water and cannot guarantee how safe the well water is. Even taking a shower could be hazardous for me at this juncture. He converted our covered back porch into a temporary storage area, later to be our eBay room. And yesterday, we got a new washer delivered. Our old one was about 15 years old, and had some mold around the gasket. Lots of changes and lots to learn!

Thank you to donors and their families everywhere! Especially thankful for my donor and their family as they go through this year of firsts.

Healing Time

We made it home! Thankfully, without incident. I was exhausted. My mom had set up a temporary bed for me on the couch. It would be much easier to get up while already partially sitting up than trying to get up from a laying position on the bed. Plus, a lot less stairs for me to try to traverse. All went well for the first couple of weeks. I did a lot of sleeping. But I tried to walk outside as much as I could. I was able to visit the horses from outside the fence line, as Lou wouldn’t allow me to go in with them. Even though all of the were very friendly….too friendly at times, we didn’t want to chance them running into me, knocking me down, or head butting against my chest. Daisy was able to come out. Her, we both trusted to be gentle. I had a followup with my doctor at the end of a month. I met with him and my favorite nurse practitioner. They were both very pleased with how I was healing. Jeff put in an order for me to be able to begin cardiac rehab. Since we were there, we walked across the hall before checking out to set up my appointment times for the next several weeks. I was to start the following week. Gulp! But, I was happy that I was going to be monitored during exertion. I was going to be able to see what I could handle while doing things.

The following week began my physical therapy. I had no idea what was going to happen. So, we got there early. The receptionist had me sit down for a few minutes while she called one of the techs over. The tech got me hooked up to the telemetry and had me start with the bike. He explained that if I felt faint, or if my heart went into certain rhythms, they would stop me. They would also be monitoring my blood pressure throughout the exercise. He asked if I had any questions…nope. He showed me how to get started and I was off. I wasn’t able to do much for the first several visits, but gradually, I was able to build up my stamina and was able to add the treadmill to my activities. Most of the time, I was able to meet or exceed the goals they set for me. Some days, I wasn’t. But I was told this was to be expected. Good days, bad days!

At one point, about 5 weeks into therapy, I saw my doctor and another of my favorite nurse practitioners in the hallway. They both spotted me and came in to see how I was doing and to say hi. Dr Afshar had another appointment to get to, but the NP stayed a few minutes longer. I told her I was doing much better and ready to get back to work. She told me she would speak with Dr Afshar and get back with me. A couple of days later, I was released to drive and to return to work. They wanted me to start out slow, so half days for a week to see how I did. After that, if all ok, I would be released to go back full time. YIPPEEE!!

I did well that first week, so I was able to return to work, without restrictions. My incision was healing very well, I was having little to no chest pain. I was still taking my Tylenol 3 times a day, but that was mainly for my arthritis pain, as I couldn’t take anymore anti-inflammatory drugs. The next month to 6 weeks passed without problems. I was still tired when I got home from work, but I pretty much went back to my regular routine. Then, around Thanksgiving, I started feeling run down again. I didn’t know if I was pushing too hard, or if I was coming down with something. My followup appointment with Dr Afshar was coming up December 8th. I already had my order for bloodwork and I knew they were going to be doing an echo. I would wait until then to see what was going on. I didn’t really say anything to anybody yet. I would wait until I had some answers.

December 8. I got to my appointment early, and as typical, I was called back for my echo a few minutes later. After my echo, I was put into a room and checked in. The pharmacist came in and we went over my medications. Asked if I had any questions about anything, no. Then Jeff came in. It was good to see him, as I hadn’t seen or talked to him in a while. We spent a few minutes catching up on things. He had copies of my surgical reports that we went over. The labs I had had done, and I asked him a few questions about my pathology report from Cleveland. (the muscle they removed from my myectomy was sent to pathology). Jeff looked at it, and told me it showed classic HCM, but to talk to Dr Afshar about it. Jeff left to go report to Dr Afshar, and about 10 minutes later, they both came back into the room. Dr Afshar asked how I was doing, any new signs/symptoms, and asked if I had any questions. We talked a bit about my labs and the pathology report. He confirmed what Jeff had told me. Then we talked about my echo results. He was pretty concerned. When I left Cleveland, my ejection fraction was about 60% (very good reading). My echo today (3 months post), showed my EF was down to 48%. This explained why I wasn’t feeling too well, but not why it had dropped. He also said it appeared that my mitral valve repair hadn’t held. They could see a big stream on the echo. Dr Afshar wanted to do another type of echo, called a TEE (transesophageal echo), where they would pass a scope down my throat to get a more direct look at my heart (without bones and extra muscle to obscure the heart muscle). We got that scheduled for a couple of weeks later, as he wanted a particular doctor to perform the procedure, and that was the soonest he could fit me in. Unfortunately, it was scheduled a week before I was to move to Virginia.

The day of the procedure arrived. I got to the hospital and checked in. I was taken back to a room and prepped…..had an IV inserted and hooked up to the monitor. The doctor came in and consented me, and then I was taken back to the procedure room. The next thing I knew, I was awake in a recovery room. Dr Afshar came in a little bit later and explained the results. It wasn’t that my mitral valve repair had failed, but that I also had an aortic valve leak. The two jets combined, which made it appear worse than it was. However, in that 2 weeks, my ef had dropped even further. Dr Afshar was pretty concerned. He knew I was leaving and wanted to make sure I was seen by the COE in Virginia within a month. He had no idea what was causing such a drastic drop in my EF. And since I was leaving, he wasn’t going to be able to really get in to it. He didn’t really do any med changes, as he didn’t know what was causing this. So, he reiterated again, about being seen quickly once I was out in Virginia. He also told me, that he was still my doctor until I got settled out there and to not hesitate to call if there were any problems or issues that came up.

He had his secretary make copies of my chart and sent to UVa. He also wrote up a very detailed progress note explaining the situation and my history. We said our goodbyes and I was discharged. Since I was already there, I went down to medical records to have them copy my chart so I could take it with me. That way, if there were any problems during the drip east, I would have copies of my records to show to whomever treated me.

A couple of weeks later, and I was gone.