FINALLY :)

• by Carol M
• 2012-08-04 12:08:10
• Surgery & Recovery
• 1538 views
• 9 comments

Good evening all.
I know it has been quite some time since I have updated you on my situation.
I am very happy to report that I just had surgery on the 31st.
It took me 3 months and traveling to a hospital 2 1/2 hours away to find a surgeon that would do my procedure, but I am definitely glad that I made the trip.
To refresh memories I was having problems with one of my leads not working correctly. Since the lead was 25 years old It was hard to find a surgeon who would do the extraction. Once I did, I found a fantastic one...Steven Kutalek.
The surgery was definitely not an easy one for anyone involved. He wanted to try and extract both active leads and a lead that had been capped because it cracked years ago. Unfortunately he was only able to extract the one bad lead, though. It is supposed to take about 15 minutes to get an old lead out. It took him almost an hour to get just the one out.
I was put completely under for the surgery (which was a very nice change), but because of that they had to intubate me. Also had catherization in both legs (arterial in right and vein in the left).
Ended up in critical care after the surgery and had a scare with elevated white cell counts and very low potassium levels. but everything worked out in the end.
So, I'm home now. Recovering nicely. Feeling better every day. The biggest gripe I have is the sore throat and very froggy voice from the breathing tube. If that's the worst of it, I consider myeslf pretty darn lucky.
Well, now that I have talked you all bored I will hush for now.
Really just wanted to thank everyone for all of your support when this first started happening and tell you that there is a very happy ending here :)