Dealing with heart disease...

[Nickiemae]

My mother(age 47) has drasticly gone down hill in the past 4yrs. It seemed to all happen at once and in the past year things have gotten worse. Heart disease runs strong in my family,not many have lived past 50yrs old.My mom has hypertension,high blood pressure, chronic lung disease, and heart disease to name a few. This past July she had to have emergeny double bypass surgery and had a minor heartatacke about a month after the surgery. When they opened her up we were told that she has the insides of an 80yr old woman....there wasnt anything to prepare me for that. She has good days and bad days which is expected...although I feel as though something is still not ok and she can see it too. Here's the problem....my mom has MAJOR(cant stress this enough) anxiety when it comes to dealing with doctors and hospitals. Its beyond out of control. She's depressed and understandably scared to death of dying. How can I help her other than the obvious...cause I have tried. I would love to have someone to talk to who understand...PLEASE!!

[Nickiemae]

Im truely sorry to hear about everything your mother had to endure and Im sure it wasnt easy for you or your family either. As far as the 80 yr old body...yes she has bad valves and a weak heart. When the doctor referrred to her body looking this way he didnt just mean her heart.....he meant it all. Veins, arteries, organs, ect. The problem with my mom is that she doesnt like to tell us everything. She's having a very hard time dealing. Her symptoms....she's definately depressed, shortness of breathe, she can't do much without having to take a break, she can't go outside in cold weather because she cant breathe, her chest is sore, she does have swelling, and she has days where she can't get out of bed because the pain in too much. My mother was a very active woman her whole life and its very difficult for her to have to slow down, this is part of the problem. She also has hypertension which doesn;t help matters. Yes she takes her medicine correctly....this much I do know. Did your mom go through a lot of emotional ups and downs after the surgery? She seems to do well for a couple weeks and then she ends up back in the emergency room which she is terrified off. She has a MAJOR phobia of hospitals, partly because she watched her father go in and out of them most of her adult life until he died at 51 yrs. (heart disease) I guess I just wonder how you deal with all this. Its not easy to watch someone you love die.....and I wanna help her. Thanks so much for taking the time to respond.
Nichole

[Encephalomalcia]

My question is if she truly has the insides of an 80 year old woman, than why did she only have a double bypass?  When doctors do open heart surgery, they usually want to do an much as they can.  I would think that an 80 year old would have bad heart valves, weak heart pump etc.  Does she have cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle)?  What are her symptoms now?  Usually, the symptoms of heart disease worsening are chest pain, shortness of breath, swelling in legs and abdomen.  Could it be that the medication is slowing her down and making her less energetic and tired?  She needs to take the medication that the doctors prescribed to live, but the medications come with the side effect of tiredness.  There are many procedures and advancement in heart reseach.  Try to be positive and enjoy the years you have together.  If she takes her medication as prescribed, she could have many years left.  My Mom had two weeks to live at age 58.  She had a five bypass surgery with the sac around her heart removed.  She also had some of her heart cut away as it had scar tissue on it from radiation she received from breast cancer at age 42.  She lived to be 70.  A lot of people in our family only make it to age 32 to 62.  Medication helps.