6 Months Down - 6 Months to Go

I can't believe it, but it has been 6 months since my heart surgery.  The hardest part of the surgery has not been the surgery, but the recovery.  You can read all you want about the surgerical procedure, but there is nothing on recovery.  Because of that, I figured I would rest the 6 - 8 weeks after the surgery like the doctor told me, and then get on my bike and only have short time before I was in tip, top shape.  As most of you know that was not the case.  Recovery has been slow, but steady, and as I later found out, it takes 6 months to a year for complete recovery.  However, with each day and each bike ride I am slowly getting better.

Last week was my 6 month follow up appointment with my cardiologist.  I had a transdoppler test and an echo cardiogram with bubble test.  The results were very positive.  The hole in my heart is not healed yet, but is getting closer.  Prior to my heart surgery I had 500+ bubbles going through my heart, at rest, with little stress and with a lot.  Now I have 70 bubbles going through my heart only when there is a lot of stress!  Great improvement.

What does this mean?  It means I have reduced my risk for a stroke significantly.  It also means the hole is almost closed up--I am very excited about this. 

With the healing a new issue has popped up.  As I said under stress bubbles go through the hole.  Well, when you mountain bike a hill climb is stress.  Even if it doesn't feel like it, it is.  So, what has been happening is when I push it hard riding, even only for a moment such as a short steep up, or when I ride at high altitude I am getting a migraine.  It only started happening recently, which is due to the hole getting smaller and I am no longer taking plavix, only aspirin.  This is not good.  You see when I get a migraine, I get an aura.  Aura's prevent you from seeing in one or both eyes.  Lately I have been getting these while riding--not always, but more than I would like.  Try going down hill blind with one eye--not fun.  The good news there is a solution.

When I get an aura I need to immediately chew an apirin--oh, and wash it down with water of course.  The purpose of chewing the aspirin is to get it in the blood stream immediately.  If the migraine is caused by a blood clot going through the hole in my heart then it will thin the blood, stop the aura's and potentially stop the migraine.  Does it work?  Well, I got to test it out a week ago, and worked.

Jolene and I were riding in AF Canyon (sadly it will be her last ride for a while), we had just finished going down Deer Creek South Fork, when all of the sudden I started to get an aura.  Luckily I had remembered to pack some aspirin, and took one immediately--yuck!  It is very difficult to swallow chewed up aspirin when you have been riding a bike.  I was worried one wouldn't work, so I took another for good measure.  We pedaled and pedaled, and I was getting worried the aura was not going away.  I knew if it didn't there was no way I could negotiate the downhill after the summit--too many things to look out for.  Just as we got to the summit the aura quit, and I did not get a migraine.  I am so glad it work. 

Now all I need to do is remember to take aspirin on every ride.  Today I forgot and I paid for it.  I was going down Rush and low and behold an aura.  I just kept riding hoping I would make it down before the aura got worse and before the mirgraine hit.  It didn't work.  The aura kept getting worse and trying to see became very difficult.  Luckily for me I ran into Karl, Dot, Joey and Johnny and was able to follow them down.  They got me to the road safely and I took off to the car to get some aspirin, and hopefully stop the aura and on-coming mirgraine.  I didn't make it in time.  The aura quit just as I hit the parking lot and now my head is killing me.  Lesson learned aspirin in the car does not do any good.

As for everyting else.  I am looking forward to the next 6 months and seeing more improvement.  Although the last 6 months the recovery has been slow I am looking forward to the continued recovery over the next 6 months of getting stronger and better.

My Last Mountain Bike Ride....

for the next 32 days and who knows how many hours and minutes.

Some of you know and some of you do not, tomorrow I am getting the hole in my heart patched up.  If you remember last May we discovered I have a PFO, well it turns out this is not the case, and luckily we found out before anything serious happened.

I haven't said much about how I have been feeling, the past few months, because it's not something I have wanted to talk about.  But since my last race in October I have not been myself.  I have been able to ride 2 times a week and that was it, and most of the time I was extremly fatigued.  I was so happy in December when we found out finally what was causing the low blood pressure, fatigue and everything else.  What I didn't let you know was when I had the seizure and my heart stopped during my table tilt test, I didn't fully recover for a good week--things were not great.  By the time I started to feel better I had my nose surgery.

As most of you know the nose surgery went well, but it took 2 weeks to get out of bed, and another week of half days before I felt really good.  What I didn't write about was what happened 2 weeks after my surgery.  It was the final day of recovery, and I was feeling pretty good.  I was cleaning the house and preparing to go back to work the next day.  As I was doing all of this I all of the sudden got a thunder clap headache.  The headache was so bad I could not think--all I wanted to do was lay down and hope the pain would go away.  I did this, and fell asleep, but do not recall the falling asleep part.  When I woke up a few hours later I was numb on the left side of my face down to my arm.

At first I thought I had slept funny, but after time passed by it remained numb--like novacane from the dentist.  Royce and I decided I probably should go to the hospital and have it checked out.  I went reluctantly, because I did not want to bother the hospital.  I figured I would be fine, but was not 100% positive.  I think I wanted to be fine, and did not want to acknowledge something was wrong.

At the hospital, they did some tests.  I had a CT scan, and xray and eventually an MRI.  All of which was to see if I had, had a stroke.  You see the symptoms I had were classic symptoms of a stroke.  Lucky for me I did not.  I did have an infection in my nasal cavity, and a lesion on my brain.  These 2 things got me sent to my ent the next day, and then a referral and appointment to the neurologist.  The ent gave me a special antibotic spray, and got me in to the neurologist within 2 days.

At the neurologist we discussed my past medical history.  I also was able to show her my MRI from last May to make a comparison.  What was noticed was the lesion was there before, but a little bit bigger, and there was more white matter.  Not a lot, but a little.  She knew I had a PFO, so she recommended I see Dr. Sherman Sorenson a cardiologist in Salt Lake.  He has worked on many PFO's (thousands) and knew he would be able to help me.  I was able to see Dr. Sorenson in about a week.

At my appointment with Dr. Sorenson I underwent another test, called a Trans Cranial Doppler test.  The test is a new test which measures brain artery blood flow by using safe ultrasound echo probes placed on the surface of both sides of the head.  If microscopic bubbles injected through an IV shunt past the lungs to the left heart, TCD detects and counts each bubble as it appears in the brain arteries.   When the test is over you are then given a rating from 1 to 5, with 1 being no bubbles get through, and 5-300+ bubbles getting through.  I was a 5 plus.

What this means is I am at high risk for a stroke, and I do not have a PFO.  Instead I have a fossa/fassa (I can't remember the spelling even though Dot told me).  A fossa is a hole without the shunt.  Which means even when my body is at rest I can have blood pass through to my left atrium, and skip going the right direction.  Which as I said means I could have a stroke.  The technical term is Atrial Septal Defects (ASD).So what needs to be done?

I am currently taking Plavix.  This is a blood thinner, which causes bruising and a few other side affects, but is worth it so you reduce the risk of a stroke.  The other thing I need to do is get the hole plugged up.  That is what I am doing tomorrow.

Tomorrow morning the doctor is going to go up my femeral artery and measure the hole with a balloon.  From there he will get the right size of patch, go back up and put the patch in place.  And I will not be fully sedated for the whole thing!

Once it's done I have to stay in the hospital overnight, and then will be released the next day to do normal activities as long as there is no physical exertion involved.  I am not allowed to ride my bike for one week.  After one week I can ride, but must take it easy, and I cannot lift anything over 50 pounds.  Also, there is no riding my mountain bike for a month!  I am somewhat bummed about no trail riding, but at least I will get to ride something after a week.

So what does this mean?  It means hopefully my low blood pressure and stuff will partially resolve.  It means I can start riding regularly and start losing all the weight I gained from lack of being able to ride.  It means I should have more energy and not feel so fatigued--my circulation should be better as well as my breathing.  The best part it means I have greatly reduced any chance of a stroke, and by doing so I will have many more mountain bike rides to come and longer to be with my family.
Pictures from my last ride on the BST...at least for 32 days.