COMPLICATIONS AFTER MITRAL VALVE REPLACEMENT

  A friend of ours (male, 53 yrs old) had mitral valve replacement at the
  Ann Arbor Veteran's Hospital on 1/26/99. In the following few days, he
  experienced high fever, extreme difficulty in breathing and speaking and
  brownish urine.  The only breathing treatment he was given was the tube
  with the ping pong ball in it for deep inhaling.  He was kept in the
  hospital for two weeks.  After being home for one week, he returned to
  the Detroit VA hospital for bloodwork and was immediately put into the
  ICU when they discovered his heart rate was 207.  They had to use the
  paddles on him to get his heart to return to a normal rhythm. He spent
  another week in the hospital. He returned four days later with the same
  problems.  Now they think he may have a blood clot in his lung and are
  going to try using drugs to resolve the problem.He was scheduled for a
  pulmonary angiogram yesterday but they cancelled it.  He is miserable!
  He's a thin person to begin with and has lost 20 lbs. He now weighs only
  113. He is very weak and is not bouncing back as we all expected.  Our
  question is:  Does this sound right? He has no medical insurance but would
  you recommend that he finds a heart specialist in the Detroit area?  Thank
  you for reading my rather rambling question.

[Cleveland Clinic, MD]

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Dear Linda,
Thank you for your question.   It can be frightening when things are not going as planned in the medical care of a loved one.  All of the problems you mentioned are potential complications of open heart surgery and it may or may not be unusual for all of them to occur in the same individual depending on the circumstances.  It is certainly however unfortunate.  As far as changing doctors this is a difficult question to answer.  If your friend has confidence in his physicians then he should press on and work with them for a complete recovery.  If he has lost confidence a second opinion may be in order. Henry Ford hospital or the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor both have a well respected cardiology departments if he is looking for a second opinion.
I hope you find this information useful.  Information provided in the heart forum is for general purposes only.  Only your physician can provide specific diagnoses and therapies.  Please feel free to write back with additional questions.
If you would like to make an appointment at the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center, please call 1-800-CCF-CARE or inquire online by using the Heart Center website at www.ccf.org/heartcenter.  The Heart Center website contains a directory of the cardiology staff that can be used to select the physician best suited to address your cardiac problem.