Posted by Jack Drum on May 15, 2001 at 10:44:11:
I HAD POSTED MY HISTORY WHEN I FIRST STARTED THE MAZE BOARD, BUT DUE TO THE RESTRICTED NUMBER OF POST ON THE FIRST BOARD IT FELL OFF THE BOTTOM, SO HERE IT IS AGAIN
I am a 67 year old male who had AF most all my life and took medications
for it for 25+ years with many bad side effects.
In March 98 all the available medications I was able to take ceased to
control the AF, and I had to go with the Maze.
As you probably know the Maze Procedure was developed by a Dr. Cox in 1987,
while he was at Barnes Hospital, in St Louis, Mo. It has been improved on
till now it is the Maze III Procedure. This is the open heart procedure I had done
in April 98. Dr. Cox was at Georgetown Hospital, but due to medical
problems of his own, was unable to continue doing surgery himself. Now he only
teaches the Maze to other doctors, and at present is working with The Columbus Ohio hospital.
I had my surgery done at OSF St Francis Medical Center, in Peoria,
Illinois, near where I live. The surgeon was Dr. Dale M. Geiss, who I think
is a very gifted, dedicated and patient friendly surgeon. His Maze patients seem
to have less complications and recover faster than many of the people that
have them done other places.
I went in the hospital on a Thurs. had a heart catheterization to see if
I had any blockages that might need fixing(none found), had the Maze on
Fri. morning and spent the night in recovery, and moved to my room on the
heart floor on Sat. morning. I was ambulatory, walking the halls and
feeling like this is no big deal. I was discharged on Wed. morning and
had a good recovery after that. I feel that for some reason I may have done better
than the average, but it was a much easier surgery and recovery than I
experienced on a earlier surgery for prostate cancer. The Maze was a
complete cure for me, as I have no AF and I take no medications, or do I
have a pace maker.
Dr. Cox seems to be teaching and mostly doing the minimal maze, and now there are two versions of
the minimal. The Cleveland surgeons do the minimal through the chest, but do not split the
sternum, and I think Dr. Cox goes through the ribs. I could be wrong on some of my minimal
maze description, but it will give you a idea, and you can do some more research on it.
several of the Minimal maze patients have more complications imediately after surgery, and
they keep them on medications longer, with a little lower success rate than the open heart
as I had. Also as you can read on the board from the ones who had their maze done at Cleveland
and Columbus, the surgeons has no contact with the patient after surgery. The follow up is by
another doctor, and there seems to be no follow up after release from the hospital.
If I had to have the same surgery done again, I would go with the Open Heart as I had,
and I definately would use the same surgeon. Dr. Geiss that did mine was the only doctor
that I saw when I was in the hospital. He does all his own rounds after surger, and is very
patient friendly.