Hey all
It's good to hear from y'all and to see so many of my buds are doing well post op. I wanted to just make a couple of points a bit clearer..
First off, the ICU nurses are the most amazing people on earth. You cannot thank them enough. I literally cried when I left for the step down unit and, as I clasped her hand weakly while she walked beside me, I told Claudette I loved her and I meant it.
She stayed with Heidi that first night, in the waiting room with her arm around her and just reassuring her, while they plunged several bic-pen-sized needles into my chest, for an hour after she gave report - she was off and could have been home with her family! This is not a mere job to these people, it's a calling.
Doctors, even the good ones, have motivations other than your comfort and emotional well being, but for the nurses you are everything. I know there are crappy nurses out there, but i think you'll be hard pressed to find one on an ICU. I am in awe of these people and i think whatever they're getting paid, it ain't enough. I sent them flowers and that seemed sooo lame as to be embarrassing! I'm thinking up something else now.
Second - Pain medication!
You might be tempted, as I was, to forego the treatment of pain because you think it's a sign of weakness or you think it's not worth feeling groggy or, inexplicably, you "don't like to take medication". All these reasons are patently stupid. Don't fool yourself - nobody admires a patient who's too stupid to treat his own pain. The point of it is that if you don't treat your pain, everything you do hurts. If you cough (and you will) it hurts more without medication. Therefor, you find yourself holding back the cough until you no longer can take it, at which point the cough HURTS A LOT MORE than if you just had taken your pills. I learned this lesson on day one and I can't stress it enough. There is no excuse for agony with this procedure - the drugs are there to mitigate every level of pain. TAKE THEM.
Lastly, it really was an easy few days. I did have some bumps which were actually worse than the operation, but even with that, I was home in four days. The pain is manageable - even the coughing - and the icky parts of the experience fly by. In a nutshell, you go to sleep and wake up with it over and done with. Then you spend a few nights being monitored by the most nurturing people you can imagine. The food sux and the technical workings of the hospital (announcements, alarms, etc.) are tiring, but it was so much easier than I thought it would be.
Good luck to all
David
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