Dee's Journal

After my last post, someone asked about pain. Well, it's relative. For me, I had minimal pain when I was on pain meds, muscle relaxers, and whatever else they were pumping into my IV - at least, as long as I was sitting or laying still. HOWEVER, movement was another thing entirely. I've read posts from people who said they had no pain and were dancing jigs one week post surgery. Me, lowering the head of my bed brought out full-throated scream. Aides thought it was real helpful to lift both legs when putting me back to bed - absolutely at least an 8-9. One leg at a time was tolerable. And it took two aides to drag me into the bathroom for shower up until about day 5. I was in the hospital for 9 days and then transferred to a skilled nursing facility for 4 weeks. Like it's been said many times, everyone is different and recovery is impacted by your physical condition and other medical problems you might have had prior to surgery. Pain has been a part of my life for quite awhile: chronic inflammation, arthritis, fibromyalgia, spinal stenosis, and a genetic condition, essential tremor (which actually affects more of your body than just your "shakes"). I had been asymptomatic for most of the build up to this 'event' and just found out that I was much closer to death than I even considered. So I am so blessed that I will push through the challenges, grateful to my cardiologist and surgeon for their skill, for listening to me, and for their perception in discovering the nuances that pointed to a critical condition. Thanking God every day for my blessings and for bringing me to my new church family.

I am beginning to think that I am not the patient to be posting here. Although I am two months post surgery, the roller coaster is still rolling. My current issue is bleeding from the incision where they harvested a vein to do my CABG. My cardiologist took me off Coumadin yesterday to see if that would improve the situation. I also have thrombocytopenia which basically means I have a chronically low platelet count. (I just happen to like that big word. :)

I was admitted to the hospital from the ER on July 31 (a Monday) with a diagnosis that my aortic valve dysfunction has passed from severe to critical. They ran all the necessary pre-op testing on Tuesday and I was off to surgery on Wednesday. I can say that didn’t give me much to time to get anxious; in fact my family and I were playing SkipBo waiting for me to go to surgery. But my "‘to do list’" and my hospital bag were in my apartment 20 miles away. So much for planning. Previous times that I have had general anesthesia, I was usually in the OR chatting before being put under. Not this time. It seems that they were pushing me toward the OR when all the lights went out and the next thing I knew, people were annoying me trying to interrupt my sleep. Evidently I was a bit combative coming out of anesthesia and I do remember the feel of the breathing tube in my throat. I kept trying to go back to sleep and they kept telling me to open my eyes. I had been in surgery for 7 hours. I have no clear memory of ICU. Within a few hours, I was out of the ICU, no breathing tube, and in my room in the step down unit. I was still hooked up to a few wires, IVs, and had a wireless heart monitor in my gown pocket. On Day 3, I developed AFib. One of the first things I had noticed was that my heartbeat was quiet but when I went into AFib, I could feel the difference and my breathing changed. The nurses would compare notes regarding my AFib b/c I could be in sinus rhythm for hours then 'flip' into AFib. I was put on amiodarone and coumadin. (Don't know exactly when or in what order.) Another thing that caused a lot of discussion was that I was perspiring like I had run a race. Water dripped from my hair, down my nose, off my chin, down my back... my bed had to be changed several times a shift and you could wring water out of the linens. As I became more aware of my surroundings, I heard people comment that my room was the coldest on the floor but I didn't notice it. I felt comfortable (when i was dry). I was also evidently on very good pain medication so my attitude to that was rather blase'.