Monthly Archives: January 2014

Journey Into Open Heart Surgery- Background

Surgery, ,

Joe resting the day before surgery DSC01408 As 2014 began, this man’s rest was becoming increasingly frequent.    He had just been scheduled to have an open heart surgery to replace a narrowed aortic valve, due to aortic valve stenosis.  We had known about this condition for over two and  a half years, because his routine health check up had revealed a heart murmur for the  first time.

The aortic valve prevents the blood pumped from the left ventricle from slipping backwards to where it came from, and is necessary for an efficiently working heart.   Over time some people’s aortic valves become hardened, usually with a calcified, bone-like material, and narrowed.  When this happens, the amount of blood which the heart can pump out per beat is diminished.

When a new heart murmur develops,  it can be due to aortic stenosis.  The next step that the medical system recommends, is to get an echo-cardiogram  This  yields information about the cross sectional area of the aortic valve,  any ventricular enlargement to deal with a harder job to pump the blood out to the body, the pressure gradient that occurs in this pumping, and the total amount of blood  pumped to the  body per beat.  

This man’s first echo-cardiogram two and a half years ago showed that his murmur was indeed due to aortic valve stenosis which was at the time, categorized as moderate to severe, with a cross-sectional area of 0.8 square centimeters.  A normal cross-sectional area is about 2.5 square centimeters, and anything over 2 square centimeters is considered normal.  There is no known medical or dietary prevention or intervention which can alter or slow the development of this condition.  The only treatment is open heart surgery to replace the defective valve with an artificial valve or a treated tissue valve.   The condition progresses relentlessly, if not steadily.

Usually, the person waits to have surgery  until after this heart condition causes symptoms of pain, dizziness, or breathlessness.  They say that if the valve area becomes so small that the condition is critical, the valve should be replaced even if one does not have symptoms.  If a symptomatic or critical aortic stenotic person does not undergo the valve replacement surgery, the person is will likely die within a couple of years.

The reason that it is recommended to wait until symptoms appear is that the valve replacement surgery itself carries perhaps a 1% chance of death due to the surgery, and perhaps a 5% chance of stroke associated with the surgery.

This man’s valve condition was checked periodically with an echo-cardiogram, until it became severe, and had a cross-sectional valve area equal to about one fourth that of a normal valve.  He did not experience symptoms, except for a reduced amount of time each day in which he could do every day things, and an increasingly lower amount to be accomplished in a day, and increasingly more resting, shown above.

His cardiologist recommended at the beginning of December that he see a cardiothoracic surgeon.  So he saw the surgeon in mid-December, who, after reviewing his brand new echo-cardiogram, which showed that his aortic cross-sectional area had shrunk further to 0.6 square centimeters, recommended surgery within three weeks of that time, early in 2014.   Thus continued this open heart surgical experience.

 

My Bargain Tulle

Crochet, Useful stuff,

DSC01602 On a recent trip to a large store, I found this tulle, or net-like material for only $3.77.  It was 50 feet by 6 inches or half a foot, and this translates into 8 and 1/3 square yards of tulle.  At a little less than$0.50  per yard, this seemed to be a bargain.  And it was already in a long, continuous strip, perfect for crocheting some little scrubbies, a couple of which I got for Christmas, and found perfect for cleaning non-stick pans.

So I crocheted six scrubbies, directly from the spool with a size I crochet hook.  Each took about one  and one third yards of the tulle, and took the better part of an hour to do.  I did not find that my own creations were as good as the ones I had been given, though about the same size, because the texture was too fine, and the number of stitches required was higher.  I put them all together, with the leftover scraps, and weighed the total on my kitchen scale.  The whole amount of tulle weighed 2.15 ounces.  The type of material of which the tulle was made was not given.   Two and fifteen hundredths of an ounce for $3.77 is not inexpensive as far as yarns go.

I decided that this is definitely not an income producer for me, and that tulle is better used other ways than as a yarn.  I am glad that I only got three, instead of all ten that I had placed into my basket in different colors, initially.

A Baked Fish Dinner

Garden, Kitchen, Menus, Recipes, , , ,

Our midday dinner of baked cod, mostly brown rice, and garden salad from yesterday  Our Baked Cod Dinner with brown rice and salad.  The warmth generated by the oven is very nice on a cold day.

Fresh parsley from the garden DSC01619  Even though it sleeted, I could go outside and pick these sprigs of parsley.  They yielded the two tablespoons of minced parsley, which I wanted, along with the two cloves of minced garlic from the store.  to put on the thawed fish.

 Garlic and the parsley chopped up for the fish DSC01621 Minced garlic and parsleyMeyer lemon given to us, half of which is to be used for the fish DSC01622 On top of the fish went the juice of one half a Meyer lemon, a gift.

DSC01623 A pat of butter on top completed the assembly.  This went into a 375 degree oven for fifteen minutes.  A very healthy dinner, and rice is leftover to use tomorrow!  I just love being able to use exactly as much fresh parsley as I would like, and not have to store the rest of a big bunch!  I couldn’t pick any more lettuce to augment the salad, because I had picked most of what is available, until more grows, but it will!