Drugs, Cheese, and Puss

So apparently I have yet another infection. Fun times! This time it’s on my scar. Puss = bad. No matter how much you have of it, it pretty much means there is an infection. So if any of you ever get into that situation after surgery, go straight to your GP. They’ve given me antibiotics and I don’t seem to see any more puss but I still won’t be happy until I’ve seen my cardiologist in 2 weeks time. GPs just seem to be...rubbish.

Now, for life with a mechanical valve. For one thing there is a constant ticking every time the heart beats. Before my operation I was pretty worried about this because if I came to hate the sound...I would be pretty much stuck with it. And there’s no way of listening to it before you have the surgery! The sound comes from the two mechanical valve leaflets opening and closing. Having lived with it for a month now I can safely say that no-one has anything to worry about this. A lot of the time I just don’t hear it – whether I’ve blocked it out or not I don’t know. IN fact, I’m pretty sure my family hear it more than I do. Even when I do hear it, it’s so soft that it just doesn’t get annoying. It’s become part of me, like the sensation of my heartbeat.

Of course having a mechanical valve means taking Warfarin (aka Coumadin in America) for the rest of my life. Not to go in to the details again as I’ve covered this at the beginning of my blog when it started, but Warfarin is an anti-coagulant which slows down how quickly blood will clot. This is important because normal blood will clot on the valve and cause a stroke. The other side is that if the blood is too anti-coagulated (i.e. takes too long to clot), it can cause a fatal bleed (e.g. in the brain).

This sounded terrifying to me before the operation but I will say that living on Warfarin really is a breeze. Yes you have to go for regular blood checks, but if you’re confident enough you can do these independently. I recently bought a machine which checks how anti-coagulated my blood is. This means I can test at home in my own time, then email the results to my nurse/GP. They will then calculate how much dose of Warfarin I need. I will say that if you’re not willing to purchase one of these machines then you will have to go to your GP/clinic every week or so, which can be a hassle for working people.

There are a lot of myths regarding Warfarin but if you do some reading around it should help calm your nerves. Yes Warfarin interacts with a huge amount of things – Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Broccoli (no loss there), Cheese (gasp!). The list is endless. And it’s not just limited to food and drugs. Even the amount you exercise can impact on your anti-coagulation level. But for people considering having a mechanical valve, the key thing to remember is you don’t have to change your life greatly. I still eat just how I used to. You don’t alter your diet, but the dosage of Warfarin you take. As for drugs...well I was never one for them and you can still take paracetamol for aches and pains. The fact that you bleed more easily shouldn’t be an issue – the only time it will be a problem is in a trauma situation (e.g. a car crash).