The
Surgery Consultation
(Duke
Cardiology << Previous Page
9/19/2008
I met with Dr.
Donald Glower today. He is known to be one of the top minimally-invasive
cardiac surgeons in the world. From the moment he walked into
the room, I felt very comfortable with him as a person, as well
as a candidate for performing my heart surgery.
We
discussed the results of the most recent echocardiogram.
According to Dr. Glower, I had the 2nd most common
form of Mitral Valve Prolapse. Instead of only
involving one leaflet, my valve had both anterior
and posterior prolapse. This contributed to a
more severe regurgitation, and was a little more
difficult to resolve than a single-leaflet prolapse.
He concurred with Dr. Wang's assessement that
surgery was appropriate.
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Dr.
Donald Glower
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He
said that there was a 90% chance that he could repair,
rather than replace the valve, but to be prepared to
wake up with a replaced valve, if he deemed it
necessary.
There
were
one of two types of valves that he could use - a pig
valve or a mechanical one. The former would only last
10 years. The mechanical valve would likely last a
lifetime, but I would need to take blood thinners daily
and get blood tests monthy - for life. Reoperating
on the pig valve 10 years later is much more difficult
due to the scar tissue from the first surgery. Due
to my age (46), I'd likely go for the mechanical valve.
I would need to let him know prior to surgery which
valve I preferred.
He
went on to say that based on the dialation of the left
ventricle, that if I did not have surgery in the next
6 months, my heart may not be able to fully recover
from the dialation and heart muscle damage. At this,
it was becoming ever-more clear that open-heart surgery
was in the very near future.
I
asked him what the chances of success were. He stated
that success rates for this type of minimally invasive
surgery (isolated mitral valve repair) on someone my
age are in the very high 90s (in terms of percent).
He also said that he has performed over 1100 of these
surgeries and that he was currently considered #1 in
the world at doing it.
In
the next few days, I went ahead and scheduled the first
available surgery date of 10/17/08 with Dr. Glower
at Duke Medical Center.
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