After your surgery, what are some of the things that you found out that surprised you

[dcc617]

I'm surprised how easy the whole thing was. Having had a full gall bladder operation and remember all the pain and morphine, this was a walk in the park. I remember waking up with the breathing tube in and having to deal with the danged thing for 45 min. I also thought that there was no morphine. (actually didn't need it) My biggest memory of ICU was the nursing staff talking during the night about job reviews and an under performing nurse. Part of my job is HR consulting and all I could think of work. But I didn't chime in with any advice. My other memory of ICU was that I had a nurse planted in my doorway reviewing a HUGE roadmap like chart. Anytime I moved, she was right there asking what I needed. My best memory of all of it was my incredible nursing care. They were all wonderful. I actually felt disappointed that I was discharged a day early.

 

[kschul]

1. I remember being excited to get home and take a hot shower. WRONG!!! Two minutes in and my hands went ice cold. I was scared something terrible was happening. I mentioned to the visiting nurse the next day and apparently you aren't suppose to do that. Your heart is still recovering and circulation is not the best, so I wasn't getting enough blood into my hands.
2. I woke up in the middle of the night, the first night home, covered in sweat and my heart was racing. I was sure I overdosed on one of my medications. I crawled down the stairs on my butt to get to the kitchen where I left my med bottles to re-read the dosing. Turns out I didn't overdose this can happen because your hormones are all out of wack.
3. I was 35 and wanted to walk around the block without wearing my TED support hoes. WRONG!! My calves felt like gelatin. Wear your TED hoes. My husband called me Nancy Sinatra.

 

[Purdue]

I may have this in one of my posts but a lot of surprises that I did not know or research but one stands out. Removal of the chest drain tubes. It felt like a bee sting...very light sting at that so not really a lot of pain. I did, however, go into shock when they were removed. Watching it was mistake number one. It felt extremely weird is the best description I can give. It felt exactly as it was...a tube laying across your internal organs / bottom of the heart area and the combination of feeling it slide out and watching it all put me into a short shock stage. I even had multiple "button pushes" of the morphine machine (the direction of the nice nurse who helped me) to aid in discomfort.

 

[Tell-Tale Heart]

My first OHS was 20 years ago, but I still remember a lot about post-op (I think I was so happy to be through it!) A couple of things:
* Waking up just a bit in ICU and wondering why they put catcher's mitts on my hands. My fingers were so swollen, that they were touching, even when I tried to move them together. I remember thinking "Oh, s**t" and dozing off again.
* Having a jagged 4-inch gash, covered with gauze on my upper leg (groin). The area was numb (and continued to be numb on & off for years). None of the nurses could tell me why. Finally found out that when I was opened up and the heart-lung machine was ready to be attached, the Surgeon found my aorta so damaged that he grabbed a scalpel and attached the heart-lung at my groin. He also said it was fortunate the donated valve had an extra long stem, so he replaced everything.
* That it was so hard to concentrate after surgery!!! All I could to do was eat, sleep, walk, repeat..... I wanted to read or watch TV, but I couldn't.
* how quickly I recovered and how much cardiac rehab helped!
I'm going for my second (and hopefully my last) OHS next week. This thread has so many things I would have forgotten about (and maybe freaked out about). THANKS, ALL! Interesting reading!

 

[selma]

Well, let's see.
Breathing tube -- not nice. Don't wish to share the gory details but, not nice.
Chest tubes coming out -- holy crap! I felt that thing in my back!
Food -- nasty doesn't begin to describe it. Suggest you go for the fruit. It's real.
Insulin and heparin -- all of the above.
Staff -- 99.9% wonderful, caring, and prompt.
Parking at Mt. Sinai -- nope.
Your back is really far away from your hands when it's time to wash it.
It's scary when you have V-tach even if you don't know it.

Additional things after having had more time to think:

Auditory hallucinations -- I'm a musician, and my brain turned all the varied beeps and alarms into "music" of sorts. Strange!
Catheter: Once the catheter came out, I never had any trouble making it to the bathroom. No bedpans for me.

 

[scg]

I was surprised they let me walk out of the ICU about 12 hours after surgery.
I was surprised how much I could walk over the first few days.
I was surprised to still feel a lot of pain at my lower incisions even now after 10 days.
I was surprised to get dizzy when standing up after sitting or lying down for a while.
I was surprised to find out I was in surgery for 9 hours!
Mitral Valve Repair 5/14

 

[marc_kowal]

I was surprised;
there was an ICU nurse stationed at every patients door the whole time you are there (I never heard of that type of personal care before),
to see how good the incision looked on my sternum,
how lucid I was as soon as I woke up from surgery,
at how they yanked the temporary pacemaker out of me (and I do mean yank),
how long it took for me to have a bowel movement,
how painless it was for the chest tubes to come out,
no decent appetite for a long time,
how well Oxycodone works,
at how long it took for me to finally sleep through a whole night.

 

[flanaganspoint]

New guy here, Aortic valve replaced with a bovine valve, and triple bypass at St Francis in Roslyn NY on May 7, 2012.
Surprised to find out that while my heart feels much better, the lungs are going to take a while to adjust. A short walk used to start chest pains, now I can walk with no pain, but I am out of breath.
The bowel movement thing.....I went 10 days without one. When it finally happened I ws afraid I was going to bust open, in all the wrong places.
Weight flucuations, normally 220 , I went up to 236, then steadily down, 21 days post op and I am at 210.
Still sleeping at an angle from my waist up, I cant lay flat and sleep. Does this change?
I am walking 1/4 to 1/2 mile a day outdoors, getting impatient to go further.
I also realize I got the brass ring when this woman married me, she has been great!

 

[MCCooper]

I was surprised by how uncomfortable the breathing tube was even when they warn you it will be in when you wake up.
I was surprised to find out months later that my first nurse was someone other than I thought it was (I guess was I wasn't as awake as I thought I was)
I was surprised by how quickly and close together they pulled all the tubes etc out of me. (They were right, recovery comes so much faster after they are all gone)
I am surprised by how much better I feel. (Having a BAV for 32 years, I had just learned to adjust)

 

[SCCWS]

I am scheduled for an early September surgery. But I have seen several comments on the breathing tube. Hopefully not a dumb question but I have always had a hard time choking w dental work. My dentist says that many people have the "gag reflex" problem. Will I have major problems w the breathing tube???

 

[yotphix]

I am scheduled for an early September surgery. But I have seen several comments on the breathing tube. Hopefully not a dumb question but I have always had a hard time choking w dental work. My dentist says that many people have the "gag reflex" problem. Will I have major problems w the breathing tube???

You won't likely have 'major' problems. None of us like it, but you really need to just accept it. I don't deal well with dental work either. In fact, it used to take me three or four tries just to swallow and Aspirin! (Now, taking warfarin every day, I've become accustomed to it.) When I woke up and realized the tube was there, I forced myself to relax and accept it, and the work that it was doing for me. I think the morphine made that task a little easier . It's totally different from having someone's hands in your throat. It takes up all of the space so there is no swallowing, and no gag reflex. It is fairly gross coming out, but that's quick, and painless if you don't fight it.
Don't stress about it. Even if it is awful (it most likely won't be that bad) it'll be over pretty quickly. Mine came out about an hour after I woke up.

 

[Boston Tiger]

Let your surgical team know that you have concerns about this and they can work with you. I have the gag reflex problem at the dentist, but barely recall my breathing tube and it's removal.

 

[SCCWS]

Let your surgical team know that you have concerns about this and they can work with you. I have the gag reflex problem at the dentist, but barely recall my breathing tube and it's removal.

Thank you.

 

[ramjet]

Dear readers,

whilst in ICU post AVR surgery, I was surprised that some nurses (mainly on night shift), have "NFI"..thats no flamin idea...I absolutely love most nurses, especially the ones who know what they are doing...but this one well intentioned yet inexperienced nursemade my heart miss a few beats...literally.

This nurse wandered over to the drip pole beside my bed. I was on a fentanyl infusion, a potassium infusion, a normal saline infusion and an insulin infusion, and also on the drip pole was the control unit for my temporary heart pacemaker.

The nurse picked up my pacemaker control unit (mistakenly) and began changing the pacing rate from 70 to 40 beats per minute, whilst making the comment, "I'll just change your insulin infusion down to 40"...at which time I politey said, "Thant's my pacemaker, please don't change my pacemaker, the insulin infusion pump is above my pacemaker"..to which she replied.."oh, silly me"...and left my pacemaker at 40 beats per minute!!!...until I said, can you please set my heart back to 70 beats per minute, my heart doens't like going quite that slow.....and she couldn't change the rate because she then changed the milli-volts on the current of my pacemaker and lost ECG "capture"....she almost killed me!

I grabbed the next nurse who came to my rescue, (and who clearly knew what to do), and held their hand, and crying, I begged her not to leave me. This is a highly regarded hospital, with many highly regarded staff.

Thinking this was an isolated incident, I was surprised to hear a cardiologist who just told me that he had his father admitted to this hospital, and he physically sat with his father for 12 hours and then had his brother sat with his fatehr for 12 hours, never leaving him alone, as he knew just what errors do happen. On more than one occasion he saved his father's life from nursing errors....serious, life threatening medication and equipment errors that required immediate intervention to avert disaster.

At one stage, whilst in hospital, I had my phone under my pillow, and I was on the verge of dialling "OOO" (thats 911 in the USA), to get the ambos to come to my help....I'm not kidding.

I love nurses, and generally they do a wonderful job, but inexperienced, casual, poorly trained nurses need lots of very close supervision ! I am certain I am not the only one with horror stories to tell. Beware, please, because errors are so easy to make.

 

[carolinemc]

First. this was much years later, that they lay your heart on your chest to do the aortic valve replacement.
Second, this was over a year post op, got diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, possible both the genes and surgery played a role.
Last, my color was bad before surgery, after was more than great color back into the checks, LOL.

 

[Skeeter]

My first post here. Came across VR while googling 2nd time OHS as I am preparing for my 2nd AVR. I had a ROSS procedure 12 years ago when I was 20. This thread caught me eye right off since, 12 years later, i still remember the things that suprised me.

1. They shaved my whole body. I was not expecting that. They may have told me about it but I must not have thought much about it until the nurse went to town with a razor. Also, stuble growing back made life in a recliner that much more miserable.
2. Length of the scar. I was expecting to be cut neck to naval and was very suprised the cut went to the bottom of my sternum.
3. Detox period. I was suprised how much anesthesia was still in my system, adversly affecting my mood, when I got home from the hospital.
4. !!!!!!!!! Nightmares !!!!!!!!!! I add the exclamations because this is something i struggled with for many months following OHS. It was the first concern I addressed with my cardiologist at first followup. He was very understanding and admitted it was a common side effect but they did not have a conclusive answer as to why it happens but was confident they would pass after 6-10 months. They did in fact cease but boy were they horrible. It's really hard to explain what they were like.
5. Fortunately i am surprised by the quality of life i was blessed with having the ROSS procedure. I was able to fully enjoy my 20's without any medication or issues of any kind. I scuba dived, mountain biked, white water rafted, bled, bruised, got sick, got married, had kids all without most people even knowing I had OHS at the age of 20.

 

[Skeeter]

I am scheduled for an early September surgery. But I have seen several comments on the breathing tube. Hopefully not a dumb question but I have always had a hard time choking w dental work. My dentist says that many people have the "gag reflex" problem. Will I have major problems w the breathing tube???

Likewise, i have a horrible gag reflect and don't remember the tube bothering me. What I remember most was how friggin thristy I was when the tube finally came out. I am guessing that there are enough drugs in your system to minimize muscle reflexes, including the gag reflex. I am certainly one who would gaged to death if there wasn't something else going on to prevent it.

 

[Laggard]

After waking I apparently had a one hour conversation with my wife and parents. I have NO memory of this. I was surprised how completely one could forget a period time where they are awake and talking.

 

[Molto_Benny]

That I walked into the hospital of my own free will -I was terrified.
Remembering nothing after feeling the cold sensation of the anaesthetic moving up my right arm.
Waking up in ICU with the ventilator tube still in place -that was uncomfortable!
It being Wednesday afternoon when I woke up -my surgery was Tuesday morning.
Learning that I had needed an almost constant transfusion of blood and platelets to get me through those first 24 hours.
Never knowing how delicious orange juice with ice chips could be.
Moving back to a normal ward after 3 days.
Being discharged from hospital 7 days after surgery.
Being pain free 28 days after surgery.
Being able to walk 6 miles 28 days after surgery -amazed by this!
Having a thump-thump heartbeat after a lifetime of having a thunderously loud murmur -I don't think the novelty of this will ever wear off!

 

[SCCWS]

I had posted about my concern of having the breathing tube since I gag really easy whn having dental work done. I really had no issue with it. I was constantly in and out of consciousness from the ned of surgery 5:00pm till the next morning around 5;00am. At that point the nurse said to try and stay awake for an hour and if I was able to breathe on my own they would remove it. i was glad when they took it out, but it was not as bad having it as i anticipated.
My Hospital actually issued a "coughing pillow" to each patient during recovery. It is made by hospital volunteers. But I did very little coughing in the Hospital. However, when I got home coughing became a major issue. The Hospital gives a hotline to call after release and I called several times looking for some relief. The best they could suggest was to get a basic cough syrup which didn't help. I would literally cough every 5-10 minutes for 4-5 hours in the afternoon. Any time I tried to lie down, I coughed. So like many I ended up sleeping in a recliner the first few nights. But then my regular doctor called the house to check on me. When I told him the coughing was my biggest issue, he told me to take the painkiller that the Hospital had given me, which i wasn't using because I had no pain, as a way to sleep better. That definitely help me sleep propped up in bed.
Obviously coughing is a common problem after heart surgery. But I felt that no one really discussed coughing to any length w me in the Hospital and I never figured out what was causing it and what I could do to avoid it. My guess is that the fluid build up after surgery must trigger coughing. I gained 15 lbs in the Hospital so I assume that fluid must have been the primary cause. But I was not prepared for 3-4 weeks of constant coughing from the middle of the day till late evening. I am 5 weeks out and I still have minor coughing mainly when I m not busy. It almost seems when I sit down to rest the coughing starts up for a couple of minutes but no where like it was right after surgery.