Posted by Val Vaughn on September 11, 2002 at 16:15:44:
Well, it's been a bit over a month since I had my maze and I promised an update so that others can use my experience as another data point to help them make their decision whether to get the maze or live with Afib.
My surgery was Aug 8. I've been in NSR for nearly 3 weeks now and so far I consider the surgery a success. The surgery went well. Frankly, it was not as bad as I had anticipated.
I was not in NSR when I came out of surgery. With external pacing, my heart could maintain a normal rhythm (sinus node paced AV node) but whenever the atrial pacing was shut off, my heart would revert to junctional pacing. Initially, the sinus node was not pacing. I was released from the hospital in junctional rhythm with hopes that the sinus node would eventually wake up. If it did not, I would require a pacemaker. Luckily, the sinus node woke up a couple of weeks later. I'm glad that it did because I was not looking forward to having a pacemaker, even though that option - a pacemaker with no Afib - would have been much better than Afib itself.
I had only one complication during recovery - fluid accumulating around my lungs - which sent me back to ICU for an additional day or so. I spent 8 days in the hospital before being released. The problem with my lungs slowed my initial recovery because I had difficulty early on with exercising and sleeping because it was hard to breathe. That has since gone away. I'm now up to 1 hour walks each day and am pretty much getting back to my normal activities.
I'm currently taking aspirin only. If I can keep it this way then I have met my ultimate goal --- NSR and no drugs. I'm building strength every day and the pain from the surgery is pretty much gone. Things are looking good.
I had the procedure done at LDS hospital in Salt Lake. Dr. Millar was my surgeon. He did the open chest maze III with a slight modification (incisions changed due to prior ablations). I was confident of Dr. Millar's skills and the chances of success so it was easier to make the decision to travel from Virginia to Salt Lake for the procedure. The doctors and staff of LDS hospital were excellent.
Finally, let me give you a little history so that you can use for comparison. I had my first bout of lone Afib at age 34. I was healthy and fit at the time. The Afib remained paroxysmal for about 9 years but the bouts went from once or twice a month to going weeks at a time in Afib with maybe a day or so back in NSR. My health, exercise tolerance and well being steadily decreased. I tried every drug available (you name it, I tried it) with basically no change in the frequency of Afib. Most of the drugs caused troublesome side effects (mostly fatigue). Amiodarone was the worst. I eventually enrolled in a "maze ablation" protocol, which used a new linear ablation catheter to try to achieve similar results to the maze surgery by burning lines in select areas in the left and right atrium. Initially it helped reduce the frequency of occurrence but later on I went into chronic Afib. After that, my doctor suggested to either live with it or consider the maze surgery. I gave up on medicines and, for the last 4 years, have only taken coumadin. I found that being in Afib without drugs was not as bad as being in Afib and on a drug that didn't really work.
Well, that's enough of my story. Thanks to this bulletin board and other sources of information, I was able to make my decision, which I hope turns out to be the best one. Hope you can also make a decision that is good for you.
- Re: 1 month update Tim Hawkins 20:20:17 9/11/2002 (0)
- Re: 1 month update Ed Wehan 18:36:19 9/11/2002 (0)
- Re: 1 month update Carl Plaskett 17:39:59 9/11/2002 (0)