Meeting the surgeon...

It's been a pretty stressful week, as you can imagine, so we took advantage of our quiet, kid-free accommodations and slept in till late morning. The only thing on our schedule for the day was to meet Dr. Mihaljevic, my surgeon at 1:00. 

As I said in my earlier post, the hotel is very close to the hospital. We left our room around 12:50 and were on the fourth floor of the hospital at 12:55. We, of course, wanted to be on time because the surgeon's time is very limited and we didn't want to miss our chance. As it turns out, he got stuck in surgery and didn't end up seeing Dr. M until 3:00. You would think that the ladies at the desk would have told us that he was running late, but they didn't. Only when we asked did they mention it. Once we found that out, we were able to get a beeper and go down to the cafeteria to get something to eat. 

One of the things Juli and I have been noticing is the variety of types/colors of scrubs at the CC. As in most hospitals, the colors represent the occupation. We're making it a game (trying to pass the time) to guess what color went with what job. One of the reasons this is on Juli's mind is that she will soon be in nursing school and is "upset" that the scrubs the nursing students wear are "clown red". At the CC, we notice a lot of people wearing all white, which, to me, look like they were employed at some sort of mental asylum. Not that I've been to that many mental asylums, but it always seems to be the standard "funny farm" outfit in movies and cartoons alike. 

Bear with me, this IS going somewhere. 

While we we sitting in the cafeteria eating our lunch, I noticed a guy at the table across from me in an all-white outfit. For some reason, I noticed that we was wearing white dress shoes (not tennis shoes). I guess the fact that he was wearing white shoes (and black socks) kind of caught my attention, and I wondered to myself (not aloud) if this guy was an orderly, a nurse, or a janitor. Again, killing time does allows your brain to wander in goofy directions, but I noticed that even the people in the cafeteria had their own colored uniforms. I joked to Juli that they could really make themselves sound important by saying..."Yes, I work at the Cleveland Clinic...(under his breath) in the food court." 

After lunch, we head back upstairs and find out that it won't be too long until we see the surgeon. We get called back, wait in the room for a few minutes, and in walks the surgeon...the same white-shoe, black-sock-wearing man I saw in the cafeteria. I find out later that Juli had seen him walking in, in his all-white garb, and thought he might be a janitor or something. 

Sorry for all the preamble, but here's the important part relating to our meeting with the surgeon:

• Even though we had preconceived notions of this man as anything but a world-class surgeon who probably makes a million dollars per year, he blows us away with his knowledge, his demeanor, and his unassuming personality. He's from Croatia, has a slight accent, but has has an air (but not an arrogance) about him that is very soothing. 

• He said that, after the tests, that they confirmed that the leakage is severe, that I've had this condition for a long time and, as a result, my heart is enlarged. The fact that I'd stopped running for a few months would not have made my heart reduce in size because it's taken years for this to occur. 

• He says that the robotically assisted surgery is even better (with even smaller scars) than the traditional minimally invasive surgery. He also says that one of the great things about mitral valve repair surgery is that it's the only surgery that brings the patient back to his/her normal life expectancy. Other surgeries improve life expectancy, of course, but this one brings it back to normal. After all, the valve is fixed, therefore the heart is fixed. Cured. 

• Once my recovery is over, I can do ANYTHING a normal person can do. I wasn't sure if I was going to run again after the surgery (just to be safe), but there's no reason for me to worry. I think I'm going to register today or tomorrow for the Mini Marathon, which happens in May, but usually sells out in November. 

• Juli and I were talking about this before, so I asked Dr. M to describe how the heart/lung machine works. This may not be 100% medically accurate, but I'll do my best. They run a line in and out of my femoral artery and vein (in my thigh, near the femur). They then inflate a balloon in my aorta, which stops the blood from entering the heart (and the heart from pumping the blood). The heart/lung machine then circulates my own blood in and out, oxygenating in along the way. Then they stop the beating of the heart (kinda tough to operate on a moving object) by  injecting some potassium in/on the heart. Juli asked Dr. M how they keep the heart tissue from dying, and he says they "bathe" the heart in the nutrient-rich blood every ten minutes or so. It just blows my mind that this is even possible. In total, my heart with be shut off (asleep, according the the doc) for 60 to 80 minutes. Once the blood starts flowing, and the potassium wears off, the heart starts beating on its own. Sometimes, they have to give it a little jump start. Simply amazing.