Posts Tagged ‘heart surgery’

Today is a Milestone Day For Me

Mar 23, 2011 life

Today is March 23, which means it has been six months since I had my heart surgery.

I had a heart catheter procedure done on my birthday last year, and it turned out I had an 80% blockage in my heart.

Six months later, I still am not up to my normal stamina, but every day I feel myself getting stronger. I almost never need my nitro spray anymore, and I walk faster than I did pre-surgery.

It’s amazing how much better I feel with the blood fully circulating through my heart. LOL

I still have to contend with the MS and all that, but as scary as it was to have it done, I’m glad that I took that leap of faith and did it.

I probably wouldn’t be here marking a six-month milestone if I hadn’t.

Now, I just need to build up my stamina so I can handle all the walking on my June trip to Canada for TBEX.

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My Daily Breakfast

Oct 4, 2010 life

I’m about a week and a half out from the heart surgery.  Most days I feel a lot better, but there are still a few days where I feel like I did before.

Doctor says it’ll take time for everything to heal, so this is normal. He says that I should be in bed resting still, but he did give me the go-ahead to travel up here to Wisconsin so I could take care of family things that were already in motion prior to the surgery.

That’s not to say there haven’t been some major adjustments.

Right now I can’t walk very fast.  I can’t lift much of anything without feeling a pain in my chest.

I went from barely touching asprin/Aleve to taking 9 pills every morning as my breakfast. Nine pills. And I have to do it at least an hour before I eat anything, so I usually swallow the handful as soon as I wake up.

Mmmm….yummy.

To answer previous questions:  Yes, I had two blockages.  The main one was in my right artery and required a stent because it was 85% blocked. My cardiologist (a funny older Indian man) told me it was the longest stent he’s used in almost 20 years of being in practice.  The other artery they just did an angioplasty, reducing the blockage from 75% to 30% (but that should go down in time).

My doctor said if I hadn’t had the surgery on my birthday, I probably wouldn’t have made it to Christmas.  He said he wasn’t even sure how I had the blood flow to walk around.

The good news is except for those two arteries, my heart doesn’t seem to show much other damage. So if I take care of myself, things could improve greatly.

I’m already working on the dietary changes (though I can’t give up cheese completely) and when my heart gets stronger, I’ll start adding in mild cardio to the daily walking I’m doing.

I do know I need a day to just relax and heal, but right now I just have so much that needs to be done up here.

At any rate, I’m just happy to be alive. Each day is bringing new challenges, but I’m doing my best to conquer them.

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