Judy O
New Poster
Offline

I Love MM.com!
Posts: 11
|
Hi Alia,
I'm so glad to hear your fiance made it through his surgery. Congratulations on your wedding! To answer some of the topics on this thread, I was diagnosed in late August 2008, and had surgery scheduled in mid-October for right before Christmas 2008. The only reason I think I put it off was because my first surgeon made me wait a month, said to just wait it out for 6 more months, and to follow up again, because my blood flow was still adequate. But we got a second opinion from Dr. Scott in Boston, and he recommended surgery (I was a Suzuki level 3). It really depends on your health insurance, and who you end up contacting. Dr. Scott and Dr. Steinberg are great about responding right away if you sent them your records / results.
I also have a desk job, but was able to return 6 weeks after surgery. Initially, it was hard to focus on the computer for very long, but by the time I went back I had no problem. Reading books was also an issue. But I'm happy to say that the problem went away, and I've been working happily (?, ha) since February with no problems.
The hair's been growing back fast, so if you're worried about that, the scars should be covered if your husband keeps slightly longer hair and not a buzz cut. For me, I adopted shorter hair just so it could all grow out even.
In terms of not wanting to know about the disease, there were times I felt the same way. At times my husband was more interested in finding out as much as he could compared to me. When I read some people's posts here, it was scary, especially right before surgery, but it's true everyone's situation is different, and if the MM was caught early enough, and there haven't been any strokes / damage, there's less of a chance of difficulties with the operation. It's really up to the person involved, though. Sometimes I didn't want to hear it; other times I was glad to know what was coming.
One of my worst problems was just dealing with so much anesthesia, my stomach was awful, and not being able to open my jaw very far to eat was bad, and just the pressure from not being able to stretch it out was an issue. But you work on it little by little, and when it stretches out, the pressure goes away, and you feel way better.
I had a 6-month checkup which went fine, and go for my first post-op angiogram mid-December. If I didn't tell people, they wouldn't even know I had this huge event in my life...so all in all, I'd have to say everything went well. I hope it's the same for all of you!! Good luck!
Judy
|