Terri said:
WOW, cool picture. I would love to see your other pics.
How long was your surgery, and how long were you hospitalized? Did it involve intensive care at all.
I'm in the early stage of planning for an ascending aorta repair (4.9 cm) and perhaps replacement of my BAV.
Terri
Hi, Terri.
I went into the OR at 7:30am 12/11. They opened my chest at 8:30a, and, according to the clock on the OR wall in one of the last pictures, closed just after 2:00p. Dr. Stelzer called Noni, my wife, to give her a report at 2:15p.
I was in CICU until about 4:00p 12/12, then to a stepdown room. I remember CICU only very vaguely. I have a very hazy memory of Noni and a friend visiting me sometime on 12/12, and I vaguely remember a doctor taking out my chest tubes sometime that day. Removal of the chest tubes was also a non-event that I hardly remember. I don't remember the intubation tube at all, even coming out.
I stayed in the stepdown room until 12/17. I think I could've been discharged 12/16 without any problem, but my blood oxygen kept reading low. Strangely, once they allowed me, at my request, to try breathing overnight without the O2 tube in my nose, my blood ox went up and everything was hunky-dory. I think there was something wrong with the O2 delivery system.
The post-op members here have a wide variety of experiences with surgery/hospitalization/recovery, but mine was, thankfully, relatively simple, painless, and uneventful- much more so than the hemorrhoid surgery I had back in September 2006. I wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy.
I'll do my best to get the rest of the images edited and up as a web gallery today. I'm back in the office every day now, but so far behind with real work that I can't seem to get around to the "discretionary" work.
