Recent content by hetmarie

I was worried during recovery about my allergies, being stuck in the house with my two cats that I'm allergic to. Fortunately my allergies were well-behaved during recovery, especially since sneezing and coughing while your sternum heals is very very painful. In the year and a half since...

I am still suffering from shoulder, arm pain 19 months post-op. I get a tightness in my shoulders and it goes up my neck into my head and down my arms. I'm not supposed to take anything aside from Tylenol due to the warfarin (Tylenol is about as useful as swallowing tictacs without the minty...

Hopefully you've called your cardiologist by now but as many others on here, I would call the cardiologist and inform him/her of the recent development. Especially if you are having pain. I had an aneurysm from the childhood until March 2011. I've been told that a normal measurement of an...

For the first few sessions they wanted me to go at a slower pace, even though I felt I could do more. After that they allowed me to bump it up at a quicker pace. It was comforting to be hooked up to heart monitor while working out and it helped build up the confidence that if my heart was...

I brought lounge pants to put on as soon as the cath was out. I kept the hospital gown on for the entire time because it was easy access for them to check everything, had the pocket for the heart monitor and frankly was too out of it to care. I was pleasantly surprised to find they had put a...

I chose spring (March) as well. I wanted good weather for walking outside (although it seemed to rain A LOT that year) and I also wanted to do it earlier in the year so that I would hit my out of pocket maximum with insurance and have everything covered for the rest of the year. I also took...

I noticed cognitive issues shortly after getting home from the hospital. Struggling to find words, no attention span, asking the same questions over and over again. I was quite freaked out about this wondering how I would go back to work and if I would even remember what to do once I got...

Charlottekaye, I see your location says Georgia. Are you now living in Florida? I do have some experience (a close family member) with the cardiac medical field of Florida although I do not have high opinions of said experiences and therefore will not recommend that particular hospital. If...

Glad to hear all the pillows are helping! Reading your first post brought me straight back to all those sleepless nights when I first got home. I am a side sleeper but it was too uncomfortable at first. I slept propped up with pillows at night and during the day in my big overstuffed chair...

Add me to the list. I had night sweats horrendously bad for at least a couple months afterwards. Living in the frozen tundra and it being the tail end of winter, I had fleece sheets and warm jammies on the first couple nights. Woke up drenched. Had my mom whip my summer sheets on the bed...

If it's dry in your bedroom, maybe you could try a humidifier while you sleep. See if it is from dry air. When I first got home from the hospital I had nose bleeds, spit up blood, etc. I think it may just be our bodies adjusting to this new anti-coagulant way of life.

Best to get it checked. The bottom part of my incision didn't heal how I thought it should and I kept bugging the surgeon about it. I went in and they cleaned it out and took a sample, the whole while saying "oh it's nothing, I'm sure it's not infected". I went in to get the results and they...

I don't know how this one compares to the one you have listed but I use it when I want to check what the nurse tells me to do with my dosage. http://www.soapnote.org/cardiovascular/coumadin-calculator/#INRhigh

Whenever my INR bounces around the first question out of the nurse's mouth is "are you on any antibiotics?" Is this doctor who put you on antibiotics the same one who monitors your INR? If not, you should let whoever monitors your INR about the antibiotics so that they can adjust your warfarin...

Thank you Phil! 2012 hasn't started out the greatest. My Grampa had quadruple bypass a week ago yesterday. His surgery went well though and he was so glad to have me by his side and help him know that everything he was feeling was normal. He figured if I could go through all I went through...