My family has had its share of bizarre medical emergencies (my sister has had bacterial meningitis and a UTI that progressed to sepsis, and my father had mysterious pancreatitis that turned into a massive necrotic cyst and three or four month long hospital say), so everyone was very supportive and eager to help. My mother wanted to fly down for my AVR secondary to endocarditis, even though my 84 year-old father was sick at the same time and they were in the process of moving. I had to talk her out of it! My sister came down and was very business-like and supportive, asking the doctor all the right questions.
The woman I was dating at the time did not take it well, however. She was very supportive, trying to ask the doctor all the right questions, and it began to wear on her to the point that she had panic attacks, resentment that she had to help me around, etc. I had to basically be her therapist post-surgery while I was in the ICU. And then she started to become afraid she had heart issues, seeing doctors serially, concerned that she had heart failure, kidney failure, etc., lashing out if I suggested she trust her doctors. It was a bad scene, and I'm not sure I handled it well on my end. I became exasperated with what I perceived to be hypochondria triggered by my own illness - hypochondria I was trying to avoid by being grateful to be alive, grateful for my life. She was so anxious she started to develop chronic heartburn, curtailed her diet till she was basically eating rice, eggs, and pasta, stopped taking her meds. I wish in retrospect that I had been more patient, but I was less than a year out from my own surgery and dealing with the fallout from that. I was, after all, the one who had mysteriously contracted endocarditis and had AVR, not her.
Loved ones really can take on what you're going through if they're not careful or if they're taking your surgery particularly hard. Important to be delicate and empathetic in these situations, but also to be honest.
