made it

[sood]

made it to the other side, thank you for all thoughts and prayers. I was in sicu for about 12-14 hours. Got my tubes pulled after 36. 2 days post op at this point, God is great. Only hiccup had been not being able to pee.

 

[anutherbuddy]

Great to hear! Hope the "hiccup" is corrected soon. And walk, breathe, walk, breathe....

 

[Heather Anne]

Congratulations, sood! I'm glad to hear you went through with it, and glad to hear it went so smoothly.

 

[sood]

Congratulations, sood! I'm glad to hear you went through with it, and glad to hear it went so smoothly.

Forgot to say I got avr with the on-x valve. my valve had 4 leaflets and was in real bad shape.

 

[kimcdougc]

Sood, welcome to the other side...it stinks still being in the waiting room. I have been thinking about you. The pee will come. lol. Take care of yourself and keep us updated. Breath, walk, eat and repeat! God IS good. Kim

 

[epstns]

And another hiker crests the peak! Welcome to The Other Side of the Mountain, and I'm glad you've made it in good shape. The urinary issue is common and considered minor. Will work itself out in short order and you'll be on the way to a great recovery.

 

[Heart Of The Sunrise]

Sood- Welcome to the other side! Now you are in control. Walk, sleep, eat...repeat!!!!! Good luck with your recovery. Some days will be slow and difficult. Others you will leap staircases. I too had the urinary difficulties that you speak of. These are quite common and should resolve fairly quickly.Today I am day 49 post-op! I got cleared to return to work on June 3rd. Big thumbs-up from surgeon last week.:thumbup: Time to change your signature.......you made it!...no longer in the waiting room! I love my ON-X valve...I am sure you will too!

 

[Jkm7]

Well done.
Happy to hear you are safely through your surgery and into recovery.
Hope things goes smoothly and easily as you heal.
Keep us posted.

 

[escargome]

Sood, glad to hear that you are on the other side of this sunny mountain. Keep up your good work toward recovery. I shall keep you in my thoughts and hope that you are released soon. There truly is nothing like home for a super restful recovery. Just remember to use your spiromenter, do as much walking as your body says you are able to do and eat a healthy diet. Soon you will be leaping over tall bldgs.

 

[Duffey]

Glad to read that you've made it to the other side. Best wishes for an uneventful recovery.

 

[DanielB]

Great news - sounds like your post-op is going smoothly and quickly. Hopefully you'll be home soon to continue down your road to recovery.

 

[njean]

Wonderful news, Sood! I hope you continue to do well in your recovery and have a wonderful new life!

Stay well!

 

[Rachel]

Great news - hope you have a smooth recovery!!!!

 

[clumsydancer]

Awesome! So glad to hear you are on the road to recovery my friend.

 

[sood]

Just read all these again and want to thank each of you for your kind support.

 

[TheGymGuy]

Sood, hope the recovery is going really well. How is that ticking?

 

[sood]

Sood, hope the recovery is going really well. How is that ticking?

It's going well gym guy. After a long day I feel beat but that is expected. The ticking is loud, but I don't regret my decision. I never want to go thru that again if I can help it.
Gym guy I know you are a weight lifter, just curious on your early weight training routines post op and when they started? I'm doing cardiac rehab but it sounds like after 8 weeks they will start pushing me. Only weight stuff I've done is 8 lb bicep curls.

 

[TheGymGuy]

Hey sood,
We are going to get you lean, mean and strong.

I will cut and paste several threads here of my week-by-week updates. My general approach was to do more every single day than previous day. So, if I did .5 miles on one day, next day I would do .6 or .75 mile walk. Things like that. Basically, all I could do was walk or variations there of, so I did just that and upped distance and/or speed daily. Biggest thing to keep in mind is that it does not matter what day after surgery you are, what matters is that you are pushing yourself just a little bit past your comfort zone to get more exercise in. Our bodies embrace the extra activity and speed up the healing. Timeline below is just my timeline, it's different for everyone. By week 4 I think you should be comfortably walking at least 2 mile, and hopefully 3 in well under an hour. Great goal to work up to would be 3.7 - 4 miles in 60 minutes which is a pretty brisk walking speed. Of course, you could even do interval speed-walking to get to that time.


5 days post surgery: 2 mile walk - http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?39987-2-mile-walk-today
9 days post surgery: 4 mile walk - http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40029-Almost-a-4-mile-brisk-walk-today
4 week update with links to 1,2,3 weeks: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40146-4-week-update
5 weeks post surgery: 5 mile speed walk and jog in an hour - http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40226-Runners-and-Joggers-5-miles-today-week-5
6 weeks post surgery back to gym: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40281-GymGuy-went-back-to-gym-Week-6
8 weeks post surgery started getting back to normal routines: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40352-More-gym-goodness-8-week-update


List of exercises I deemed safe at 4 weeks or as your body allows you: http://www.valvereplacement.org/forums/showthread.php?40147-A-little-bit-of-exercising

 

[sood]

Thanks for the links gymguy. I'm taken it you cleared all these activities with your docs prior to doing them? Cardiac rehab has been really slow for me, they are adamant about not getting me over 30 beats over my resting heart rate. I feel like I could have started jogging at least a week ago.
I guess I have no reason for pushing it and will just go at their pace. Besides less energy, little sternum pain and a mild cough, I feel pretty damn good. I think hopefully after another couple weeks pass, physically ill feel like this op never happened. Which is quite amazing.

 

[TheGymGuy]

I told my doctors of plans of an accelerated recovery. In addition I kept them up to-date with my activities. Best advice I got was take a step back when you are pushing it, and you will know when you are pushing it.

I agree, in several weeks everything will feel like a distant memory and normalcy will really start settling in. It's going to be great.