❤️ DON’T LET FEAR STOP YOUR RECOVERY After heart or aortic surgery, it’s easy to develop what we sometimes call “cardiac paralysis” — being so afraid of hurting yourself that you become afraid to move. But once your medical team gives you the green light… MOVE! 🚶‍♀️💪 Start small. Walk the hallway. Get out of the chair. Take another lap tomorrow. Consider cardiac rehab. Gradually rebuild confidence in your body. You don’t have to run a marathon. Heck, some days making it to

🏡❤️ THE WORDS YOU’VE BEEN WAITING TO HEAR: “YOU’RE GOING HOME!” After aortic surgery, there are milestones that feel HUGE—the first time sitting up, the first walk down the hallway, getting tubes and lines removed…and then comes one of the best: GOING HOME! 🎉 Walking out of the hospital is absolutely something to celebrate. You’ve been through major surgery, long days, interrupted nights, countless vital checks and probably more hospital food than you ever wanted. 😉 But di

❤️ WHAT HAPPENS AFTER AORTIC SURGERY? You’ve made it through surgery—but what happens next? In his latest The African Perfusionist post, Emmanuel Mbaka walks patients and families through one of the biggest questions surrounding recovery: “What Should I Expect During My First Week in the Hospital? The First Days After Aortic Surgery” From waking up in the ICU and understanding all those tubes and monitors, to getting out of bed, walking the halls, managing pain, breathing exe

Hello everyone! I’m Alvaro, and welcome back to #AorticDiseaseAwarenessMonth. Today we’re going to tackle a question that many patients ask about aortic disease: “🔎 How Do We See Aortic Disease?” The aorta is the largest artery in the human body, but we cannot diagnose most aortic diseases simply by looking at the patient. Aortic aneurysms, dissections, intramural hematomas, and other aortic conditions can develop silently, sometimes without producing any symptoms until a li

Welcome everyone to Medical monday, my name is Alvaro and today, we’re going to dive into and debunk a common myth in aortic disease: “If you have a dissection in your abdominal aorta, you will never have one in your thoracic aorta.” But is that really true? Let’s take a closer look at the case, the evidence, and what happens to the aorta beyond the segment where the dissection was first diagnosed. For patients living with aortic disease, it can be tempting to think of the ao

What Is Transesophageal Echocardiography (TEE)? Transesophageal echocardiography (TEE) is an advanced ultrasound technique used to obtain high-resolution images of the heart and thoracic aorta. Instead of placing the ultrasound probe on the chest, the probe is inserted into the esophagus, which lies directly behind the heart. Because the esophagus sits so close to the heart and the aorta, TEE provides clearer and more detailed images than standard echocardiography in many sit