Help Marc Recover from Life Saving Open Heart Surgery

My name is Marc and I’m 31. Originally from upstate New York, but have been living in Florida for the last decade. Life’s had some amazing moments down here and some not so great moments in Florida, so I was planning to relocate back to New York in August. I have a few congenital health conditions that have been slowly evolving into major problems and will be life-changing soon enough. One being a heart murmur, a bicuspid aortic valve with heavy regurgitation (back flow of blood in the heart) and aortic aneurysm.

Mid July, I lay in bed rolling in a cold sweat for 3 days. Finally, rather than go to work on Monday morning, I took an Uber to the hospital. Being high risk for endocarditis and infection of the heart, the doctors immediately started treating me for that. It took about three weeks, but even though they said it was endocarditis, all the tests showed negative. They released me around August 1.

A few days after, I was packing my car up to drive to New York and the Florida heat got me. I started projectile vomiting and collapsing to the ground, having to call 911. The infection came back this time worse within days. Currently, I am at HCA North and West Palm Beach, recovering from serious pneumonia and dual treating what they’re assuming is endocarditis again. This isn’t the end of it though.

Once I get to New York, I thought I was going to have to have a very minor valve replacement surgery. But come to find out today, it is a full open heart surgery because of my aortic aneurysm and the damage to my heart valve. This is going to be a year long recovery and my life will never be the same. Needless to say, this is very shocking to me and my family and I am still mentally adjusting to what life is going to be like for me physically and mentally once the surgery is done. As many of you know, I’m very active, and I don’t know where this will leave me with physical activity. It’s a really tough pill to swallow. Not only is it a very dangerous infection to overcome that could switch in the blink of an eye, but the surgery itself is very dangerous as well. I’m in the early stages of figuring all this out, trying to clear the infections first. But I will be out of work for some time and support, prayers, and love you guys can send me would be greatly appreciated because life is about to do a full 180 on me.