Mldelag1
Member
Hi folks, so I had my redo sternotomy on February 23rd. I am 39 years old. I should have come through no problems except the previous surgery reflected significant issues in completing the surgery making a 5 hour surgery a 12 hour surgery. I was on heart and lung machine for twice as long as intended. After scheduling life flight to pick me up, my heart finally beat on its own.
Now we knew that a pacemaker was up on the list but before I could have that, I had to clear the sepsis from my body.....I had 2 different bugs in my urine from the catheter and pneumonia and some pleural effusion. A trip to the lab and a puncture to the lung drained that fluid and after 2 weeks infectious disease cleared me for pacemaker. It took him 4 attempts to place it in a spot because my left heart is in complete blockage. After 13 days in the cardiac ICU and 4 days in step down I finally went home.
I was home 11 days and woke up feeling like crap thinking I had appendicitis. I ended up heading to the hospital after lunch remembering nothing from car ride forward and 5 minutes after checking me in, I went in to cardiac arrest. Back to cardiac ICU I went from Thursday of last week until last night when I got transfered to step down unit and a date of Monday for my new defibrillator to be installed. I can't believe a 3rd surgery. This time I end up with a tongue full of ulcers from biting my tongue, some pneumonia and lucky me, I got a blood clot (thankfully surface only) in my right arm. I am also retaining excessive abouts of fluid and am being pumped full of diuretic. This has, in turn, ,caused significant potassium deficiencies. So we fight the battle. I have gained over 20 pounds in fluid in the last week. My right side of my heart is enlarge and they have to now do another echo and determine where defibrillator leads need to go.
Now we knew that a pacemaker was up on the list but before I could have that, I had to clear the sepsis from my body.....I had 2 different bugs in my urine from the catheter and pneumonia and some pleural effusion. A trip to the lab and a puncture to the lung drained that fluid and after 2 weeks infectious disease cleared me for pacemaker. It took him 4 attempts to place it in a spot because my left heart is in complete blockage. After 13 days in the cardiac ICU and 4 days in step down I finally went home.
I was home 11 days and woke up feeling like crap thinking I had appendicitis. I ended up heading to the hospital after lunch remembering nothing from car ride forward and 5 minutes after checking me in, I went in to cardiac arrest. Back to cardiac ICU I went from Thursday of last week until last night when I got transfered to step down unit and a date of Monday for my new defibrillator to be installed. I can't believe a 3rd surgery. This time I end up with a tongue full of ulcers from biting my tongue, some pneumonia and lucky me, I got a blood clot (thankfully surface only) in my right arm. I am also retaining excessive abouts of fluid and am being pumped full of diuretic. This has, in turn, ,caused significant potassium deficiencies. So we fight the battle. I have gained over 20 pounds in fluid in the last week. My right side of my heart is enlarge and they have to now do another echo and determine where defibrillator leads need to go.
