Health Problems

I'll chime in here since I'm currently on week 7 of recovering from pretty much the same procedure. Open heart, triple bypass so not quite exactly the same, but they still cracked me open like a lobster. I don't want to scare you and I'll preface it by saying mine was definitely NOT the typical experience, due to constant mistakes on the hospital's part, but it was hands down the worst thing I've ever gone through. I've got a pretty damn high pain tolerance and I always say that I want to live forever, but if you had handed me a gun in the first 24 hours after the surgery, I would have swallowed a bullet. That was their first screwup-forgetting to give me any sort of painkillers after the surgery so we were chasing the pain, and being Irish I have damn near immunity to painkillers so nothing helped until day 2 they finally said fuck it and loaded me up with fentanyl. Second mistake was they forgot to turn on the pump connected to the three tubes jammed into my chest to pump the bile out of my stomach, so I blew up like a balloon. Then they kicked me out of the ICU way too early since the surgeon wanted another bed so he could do another one and I was the youngest (44) and "healthiest" patient they had. Your guy's name wouldn't happen to be Caldeira by any chance is it? Sounds same as mine, does a couple hundred a year, giant ego, and a real asshole to boot. I'll skip the rest of the gorey details, but the cliff notes version is I coded twice, had to be brought back, bounced back and forth from the ICU 4 different times, and ended up being in there almost two weeks.

Oh but the fun didn't stop there. On my way to my 6 week followup I started sweating like a whore in church, went blind, and started vomiting like the exorcist on steroids. We pulled over and called 911 and when they got there my BP had tanked to 70/30. They took me to a real hospital and turned out the shitty hospital where I had the surgery let me leave with pneumonia, sepsis, and a blood clot that had gotten into my lung so I ended up in there for another 4 days and now I'm on two different major blood thinners for the next 6 months. Again, not trying to scare anyone, but the nurses all used the same line on me - "80 year old ladies get this done all the time, you'll be fine!" Just by coincidence, my 50 year old cousin went in for the same procedure about 5 days after I did, and he had the standard experience. A lot of initial pain, but out in 5 days, pretty close to being recovered now. I will say now that the pneumonia and blood clot are gone, I feel a hell of a lot better than I did, and am starting to get back to normal life. You will definitely feel much stronger and have much more stamina afterward, so overall it was worth it for me, but definitely not something I would ever want to go through again.

Couple quick things they don't tell you about. First, and definitely most important, if you don't have one already buy yourself a bidet or a bidet attachment for your toilet. You can get a decent one off of Amazon for like 30 bucks and they install in ten minutes. Seriously, life saver. Second, it's truly shocking how quickly you lose muscle mass when you're just sitting on your ass in a recliner 23 hours a day. Third, it will definitely take a mental toll on you. I'm a generally upbeat guy but having to rely on someone else for the most basic of tasks and the feeling of complete helplessness and uselessness eats away at you pretty quickly. Lastly, definitely do the walking, the breathing exercises, and the cardiac rehab. They help immensely and just seeing yourself make progress even if it's small helps with the mental aspect.

TL;DR version- It fucking sucks worse than anything that has ever sucked, but overall it's worth it in the long run. Any other questions, feel free to ask.

Good luck, hope everything goes smoothly for you!

mkopec said:

So im having open heart surgery this mon 5th Oct.

It all started about 3 yrs ago when I was going to work in the morning I almost passed out. Saw black but then I returned. Went to work and felt some weird shit in my chest. Like palpitations or some shit. Anyway that weekend after having chest pain I went to ER, thought I had a heart attack. But nope, they said I was good. Bit of high blood pressure but thats it. They ordered a stress test so that monday I went in and got it done and this is when they discovered I had Hypertrophic Cardio Myopathy. Its basically a genital defect where a part of my heart, inside on the septum grows thick. Mine was about 21mm at the time.

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The cardio doc told me its basically a 1-500 people get this shit, but most never have symptoms. They live out their lives normal. But I guess I was the unlucky one. Anyway he gave me some meds and shit was fine for a few years after although the pain would start sooner when doing shit like walking or anything strenuous. Then this spring he ordered a ultrasound and told me the bad news a few days later. I would have to have surgery because the heart can no longer pump enough blood, its like a 60% obstruction or some shit. He told me that I could wait a year or so for the surgery, it was no rush, but sadly I started to feel like shit a few months ago, more pain, more discomfort in the chest, that palpitation thing. Its hard to describe but you can feel it and its fucked feeling. So I called the doc and he recommended a surgeon and off we went...

So at the meeting with surgeon, the dude explains what the procedure is, they basically hook me up to a heart and lung machine, cut me open about 6-8 inches, crack my chest open, go in through one of the major arteries and cut away the thick shit. All this time I thought this was on the outside of my heart, not inside, lol. Man for the last month my head has been spinning with shit.

But the good news is this dude is a superstar. He does like 200, yes 200 fucking open heart surgeries per year. He told me he does 12-15 of these specific HCM surgeries per year (rather rare). So I guess im in good hands. Still its hard to trust your life to someone else like this but I have to. I cant go on feeling like this any longer. They also did a cath test to see if I had any blockages so they can take care of all the shit at the same time and I did. I guess it wasnt bad yet but they are going to do a bypass too, lol. So if I come out of this Im going to be a new man.

Hospital stay is like 4-6 days depending on circumstances and recovery. The nurses I met with told me it sounds worse than what it really is. Most of the shit to deal with after is the chest being cut and split open. 6-12 weeks to heal up. They now screw in a titanium plate to both sides for stability rather than the wires they used before. And in the mean time I cant lift anything, pull anything, cant lift my hands above my shoulders, none of that good shit. Its going to be tough.

As for the prognosis, I guess its great. Life becomes normal again, no more pain, no more lightheadedness, no more chances of passing out, although that never happened to me. And I will feel no more fatigue like I have been. And this is basically a fix for the rest of my life. There might be a slight chance I get stuck with a pacemaker, he told me its like 5% chance. But I guess this is no big deal.

So wish me luck fellas.

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Praying for you brother.