Thorp Air Command - T18.net

Hi gang, just a quick report to brighten your day. There is life after open heart surgery! I have a new lease on life, let's call it 30 years (gets me almost to 100...), thanks to open-chest, open-heart surgery last week. I tried to get my A&P/IA to do it -- would have saved Medicare around $half-million$ -- but his lame excuse was, he's not insured for it.

Mitral valve repair just over a week ago: 02/02/2023. Freaking MIRACLE of modern medicine. My MV regurgitation had progressed to "severe" over the years, meaning it was time. Wait much longer, and I would have earned a few other issues like hypertrophy, congestive heart failure, pulmonary hypertension, more and more a-fib...stuff like that.

Brilliant surgeon Dr. Song at OHSU (Oregon Health and Science University) did amazing work on me. Total of five days in hospital, now slowly but happily recuperating the rest of the way at home with a few excursions out of the house.

Any questions or desire for discussion, I'm all for it. If you're not squeamish, you can admire the scar as well as the ridiculous number of tubes and wires they had in me on day three in hospital:

https://youtu.be/a87HJuM-ljE

Here's to brilliant physicians and the tremendous advances of modern medicine! I'm guessing some of you have had open heart surgery as well -- feel free to share.

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Philip Mandel
N118BC
S/N 957
Beaverton OR

Glad you are all patched up! Hope your recovery goes smoothly Phil.

Good to hear you are recovering well and will be back in the air by spring-ish...

My first time up in my Thorp since my mitral valve repair surgery February 2. You have no idea how good it felt to be up in her again! Thank goodness for Basic Med. My surgeon cleared me for takeoff during my post-op visit March 13th. Thanks go Basic Med, that's all I needed to get back in the cockpit (and instruct as well, in the flight school's Cessnas). FAA medical? That will take a few months. Do I care? NOPE. Basic Med. Love it.
Oh, and I had the mags rebuilt while I was down (plus the Wx was awful for weeks, as y'all probably know). So, no time lost, just an investment in sparks. She LOVES her overhauled mags, in addition to the previously replaced spark plugs.

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Philip Mandel
N118BC
S/N 957
Beaverton OR

That's great to hear, Phil!

I Share your enthusiasm! There's something special about these Thorp airplanes...!!

Peter

BasicMed rocks!
For those who don’t know, you can be on BasicMed at the same time as a regular medical. I highly recommend it. If you have any disqualifying medical issues, you can not start BasicMed. So why not start it now, while healthy? Then if something happens, you can still Thorp away!
Cubes

Great to hear!

P.S.

I am a Senior AME and Special Consultant to the Federal Air Surgeon on cardiac issues. Happy to assist or answer questions.

Matt

Ha! Matt the Knife….love it. Welcome Matt the heart surgeon..
Cubes

Matt the Knife (thanks to James!), I'd love to connect. Sending you a PM.

_________________
Philip Mandel
N118BC
S/N 957
Beaverton OR

Thanks Cubes....glad to be here! (oops, is that Navy/Blues?)

Phil - look forward to chatting.

M