Continue on joan surgery

[martha]

Just spoke to joan,

All is not so great... She has visual disturbance, seeing red tiles on the ceiling. Also had trouble breathing... took chest xray and found she had a collapsed lung. So they had to call in a surgeon who put in a chest tube. She is not feeling so wonderful. She had as of today walked twice around the floor. I was going to go and see her tomorrow. However, she asked me to wait one more day. So, sunday will be the day. She told me the food was terrible. So she has had nothing to eat. Her husband allen has been with her. I'll be sure and take all your well wishes when I go.

 

[Peter Easton]

I can hear it about hospital food! Hope she starts feeling better very soon and can sense that the road leads up. I had some visual disturbances post-operation that disappeared in the following two weeks. All of us, I guess, have our lungs a little bit deflated by the heart-lung pump experience. I am still sucking away on the little gizmo they gave me to help with reinflation, now up around 2200 cc after being way below 1000 in the hospital. Give Joan our love and encouragement!

Peter

 

[Cindy]

Thinking of Joan

Thinking of Joan

Hi Martha,
Thanks for the update - I have been thinking of Joan and wondering how she is doing. Tell her my dad also had "visual disturbances" for a few days after surgery. He saw spider webs, dust, moving wavey patterns.... It goes away. I know that chest tube is no fun... but tell her it is just a bump in road to her recovery. She will soon start having those days where she feels *so * much better than the day before.
Can her husband bring her some take-out food? They allowed us to bring my dad food - frozen yogurt, decaf Starbucks, fresh fruit..... The dietician at the Cleveland Clinic even said that for the first few weeks they were most concerned about intake of calories - especially protein. Then after 6 or 8 weeks they would worry about cholesterol, and other things... They seemed most concerned about salt at this stage.
Tell her we said hello and can't wait to hear she is home and feeling much better!
Cindy

 

[sylviayasgur]

hi martha!
thank you so much for keeping us informed of joan's progress. please send her our best and well wishes for a speedy recovery. she is in our prayers.
-sylvia

 

[martha]

Wow, peter! can you get that thing up in the numbers. I never could... never used it much either. One other thing, joan is a diabetic so they have been giving her insulin by IV. She was not to happy with this. I never had a breathing problem after they took the breathing tube out. We all recover differently. They put in a pig valve. So I was thinking of finding a pig myla ballone (sp)Something to cheer her up.

 

[Peter Easton]

Piggishness

Piggishness

Here's something to cheer her up about the pig valve (I've got one, too). Pigs aren't very favorite items in either Jewish or Muslim cultures. I think she's from one of those and I'm partly (in-law side) from the other. But I've got it all figured out in a way that makes us heroes! The REASON, I figure, why Semitic cultures (Jewish and Arab) won't touch pork is really the same reason why pig valves work for heart valve recipients: structurally and functionally, pig hearts are so close to human ones. Why, they're close relatives. The prohibition against pork and what-not doesn't really have anything to do with pigs being dirty or inferior creatures. It is a prohibition against cannibalism! One shouldn't eat one's honored close relatives. So what more honorable thing than to harbor a pig-valve implant, leastwise as long as we didn't kill the pig ourselves.

Regarding the air-inhaler, most of us, I think, discontinue it when we get home, since progressive exercise is an equally good way of expanding lung capacity. But I do note on the little flyer inserted in the bottom of the gizmo that normal intake for someone of my age and size is up around 3500 or 4000 cc, so I've got a ways to go.

Peter

 

[Shari]

Hi Martha,

My husband also had visual disturbances after his surgery. It was quite scary for me because he said he kept seeing things falling from the ceiling and spiders on the walls. I thought he was going crazy. The nurses explained intensive care psychosis and "pump head" from being on the heart lung machine. Let Joan and her husband know that it does go away. it might be frightening for her husband to see her this way. It was for me. Also my husband had a problem with his right lung after surgery. His right lung was "paralyzed" in that it wasn't expanding all the way. The surgeon couldn't explain it so we don't know what really caused it. He's not having any problems breathing, but we will get it checked out in December to see if it has returned back to normal. Let Joan know to take each day one day at a time. For us, it was a roller coaster ride, but he pulled through. I know Joan will too. )

 

[ticktock]

Martha
Sorry to hear that your hubby is not having the smoothest of recoveries. I too saw things, in fact, I saw Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin and my dog, in the floor tiles. They were kind of swirly, and I felt sure they were drawings put there to entertain me.
Not. My parents saw NO humor in this, as they were worried that I had stroked or something. It passed in a few days. Another thing that CAN cause visual disturbances, is the pain meds, particularly morphine or its derivatives. Time heals. Be patient.

God bless you, and I will keep you in prayer.
mindy