During surgery questions???

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paulschumann

Member
Joined
May 2, 2011
Messages
20
Location
Minot, North Dakota
Valve is 1.2cm and my aorta is 4.8cm. going in for my angiogram on wednesday. I hade all of my wisdom teeth out 2 weeks ago and experienced "going under" for the first time. Dr. ask my name, I gave it to him then I blinked and it was done and I was ready to go home. no pain, little achy, but not enough to take those horse pill painkillers.

My question is to those of you who have had valve & aorta replacements, is do you experience anything at all during surgery like when you sleep or dream? or is it a "blink and you're awake" with new parts having zero concept of the time that had just past.

what will keep me from freaking out when I do wake up? will I be strapped down or restrained?
 
From my own experience it was a "blink and you're awake". Others I am sure will post soon.

However, you likely will have a breathing tube in your throat. Just relax and go with it. Once you prove to the staff that you can breathe on your own, out to comes. Just don't panic. It is easier to go with the flow than fight it. If you remember, have a family member bring a piece of paper and pencil so you can write what might be buggin' you.
 
Hi there, hope all goes well. I'm just wondering, what's prompting your surgery? Is it your valve or aorta?
 
It was blink out, blink-awake, for me. I was pretty mellow but aware when I woke up, and not in any pain at all. I used sign language (the alphabet) to ask for the tube to be removed, one of the nurses actually remembered it from highschool LOL. That's probably not the norm though.
 
I was pretty drugged up and don't remember going out at all. I kind of remember waking up, but not really.....all a blur for me.
 
The 4.8cm aneurysm is prompting the surgery, I have no symptoms other that the less energy that I used to have which I attributed to being in my 30's and not 22 anymore
 
I though they will be waiting for it to be around 5 cm. Are you having surgery soon ?
 
Hi, Paul, you should be completely unaware of surgery. It is a blank time. One moment you are clear headed and awake and the next moment you are awake and definitely not clear headed. My first conscious moment was a nurse talking to me through the fog and telling me everything had gone well and that I was in ICU recovery unit. I have sporadic memories of the ICU which include sitting up, standing up, and the breathing tube being removed; none of these things caused any difficulty and all are a little fuzzy. I know that my friend, Dan, and my brother, Mike, talked to me in the ICU but I have no memory of them being there. I wasn't clear headed until two days later when I woke up no longer in the ICU but in my own room. What ever I had expected, I was quite surprised to find that I was in no pain and very comfortable. Then I opened my eyes and started following the tubes and wires and finally put my hand on my chest. Yep! It had, indeed, happened. I don't think you have to worry about "freaking out" because you will still have a lot drugs in your system. I said I woke up "clear headed" but I made a telephone call later that morning of which I haven't a shred of memory.

I did notice that I was retaining a lot of fluid. I described it earlier as looking and feeling like Puffy the Blow fish. A little later just as the sun was coming up in my window, my nurse came in to ask if I was ready for breakfast. She laughed a little when I asked if it was ok to move. She helped shepherd my various connections as I got out of bed and moved to a chair. I felt stiff and creaky and very weak standing on my own feet but not bad. Breakfast surprised me because it came with coffee which I had avoided for weeks because it set off palpitations. I ate everything and drank the coffee and then found I needed a nap. The first walk came a couple of hours later and things just got better. I had a very uneventful time while still in the hospital. My only difficulty was the night after my first meals when I developed a lot of gas which was uncomfortable until I eventually deflated.

My experience was that the nursing staff would help in any way they could as long as you were doing your part which mostly consisted of resting, sitting up, walking and regularly using the spirometer. For the less cooperative, I understand they keep cattle prods.

You will be surprised when you wake and probably not in a bad way.

Larry
 
Thanks for the replies, they help more than you know. after getting 6 teeth cut out and going under for the first time I feel much better about this open heart ordeal. I had almost zero "pain" just a slightly stiff & achy jaw for a couple days and wondered why the 2 full bottles of jumbo pain killers that could make an elephant loopy. If the valve & aorta replacement goes half as smooth as the oral surgery I'll be doing jumping jacks down the hall a day after surgery.

another strange and possibly inapropriate question is...how soon can you have "happy fun time" with the wife? Obviously the swingin from the chandelier monkey sex will have to wait a few months or is any activity at all too much for the healing process.
 
You are not going to remember anything from the surgery unless something goes wrong which it wont! When I woke up in the ICU I was in no pain, slight pain maybe but the pain came after I was fully awake even than it wasn't too bad but not good. For me the hospital was not fun, I felt very weak and out of it for a week, there were moments of clarity but overall I was just out of it trying to do my walks and sitting. I always completed my walking and sitting goals but it wasn't always enjoyable.

Here I am 18 days post up and I have many moments of clarity and good mood and then I also have moments of fatigue, weakness, moodiness, nausea, constipation, feeling like I cant take a complete deep breath and temporary dizziness upon standing which my DOCTORS say should all pass in the upcoming months. I truly thought I was going to feel great right after surgery but this is not the case, I actually feel the same and sometimes worse at times. There are times where I feel a little better but the recovery is not what I thought it was going to be.

You may not have this experience, many people report feeling great right away after the surgery so everyone is different but on average people feel pretty lousy the first 2 to 8 weeks after surgery. Even though I can't see the light at the end of the tunnel sometimes the honest truth is the light is there and you and I will get there but it does take TIME. No hurry, just follow doctors orders and take it hour by hour, and day by day. You will do fine, the odds are in your favor!
 
I am surprised none of you went through any pain. Good for you all.
In my case, my anaesthesiologist warned me before the surgery that when I woke up, I would feel like a mack truck ran over my chest and indeed I experienced it for a few minutes. But they quickly brought it under control with a morphine drip. But it is true, you don't feel a thing during the surgery. It is as if those 3 hours never existed in your life.Sometimes I really wonder if I even have a foreign object inside me or if it was just a make believe story they conjured up for the insurance companies, lol :).
 
Hello and welcome to our wonderful community!
This is a fun question for most of us... can you tell? I don't know why, but perhaps because so many of us were surprised at how easy it was, all in all. You can't count on it, of course, sorry to say. But you should certainly go in there with your wonderful (and now experienced!) positive attitude. I think optimism and confidence are your best friends here, so keep them close by.

As for me, I was lightly sedated while they parked me in a back hallway for awhile (surgeon having his latte?? don't know). When the anesthesiologist came to get me and wheel me into the OR (great big doors, bright room, cold air) he told me cow jokes (after he asked me what kind of valve I was getting) and really got me laughing. I drowsily watched a few minutes of hub-bub in the room and then his voice came softly right into my ear, "okay sweetheart, here you go" and it was light's OUT!

I know there is an type of anesthesia which somehow causes you to forget a lot. That is probably what I had. My family knows things about my recovery that I have no clue about. I remember a few snippets of moments as I was coming out of things, but nothing painful (just very stoned feeling!). I have no recollection of the breathing tube, but I know that I had no issues with it either.

Eventually we all feel like we were hit by a truck -- that just goes with the territory, but it is a feeling that wanes as we improve.

You will hear so many stories and soon you will have your own! You will do well. Ask as many questions as your care to of us. We have a lot of collective experience.

Best wishes

Marguerite
 
Marguerite is right, this is a fun question!! I find the memory of what happened to me quite amusing... one minute I was in a room just outside the OR getting a line put into the back of my hand... the next thing I knew someone was waking me up and telling me it was all over. My surgery took 4 hours but felt like the proverbial "blink of an eye". I don't recall any tube down my throat, just a vague recollection of being asked to cough... perhaps they removed it at that point but I was too "out of it" to notice, or care what they were doing. :rolleyes2:

I don't recall much of the first 12 hours or so, when I was in intensive care, I think I was probably asleep for much of the time, possibly through sedation, painkillers or the after effects of the anesthesia. I didn't feel alarmed or worried by anything I felt or had done to me when I "came to" a bit more the following morning. It took a good couple of days for my head, and thinking, to clear, but I don't think that was a bad thing, really.

As for the pain issue I do recall my husband coming to see me about 18 hours after it was all over and telling him that my chest really did hurt quite a lot... as if a horse had kicked me really hard in the chest. I had quite strong painkillers (oral morphine) to help with this but not for long... by about day 4 I felt very much more comfortable and was managing with just Paracetamol (over the counter pills we take here for headache etc.).

All in all I think you just get on with it when you find yourself in this situation - it's not all bad or difficult, and recovery can be remarkably swift if you take good care of yourself and follow any post-op advice and instructions you are given. So I say just go with the flow and you'll be fine! Good luck to you! :thumbup:
 
I was really worried that I'd wake up from surgery and just start hauling things out of me, but the anesthetist said that would not happen. He was right - I was suddenly awake with a tube in my throat and a nurse was right there (in ICU here there is one nurse per patient, they watch you all the time) and she asked if I wanted the tube out.

My hospital was right next to a big park with native bushland and I swear to this day that at some point the fire alarms went off and I smelled bushfire but was told they didn't need to move me. Apparently this did not happen . . . .

I was insanely thirsty though but the nurses wouldn't let me drink much. Once I managed to get THREE sips of water in before she realised what I was doing and then I felt incredibly nauseous - so listen to what they say about small sips!! Throwing up would have been intolerably painful.

I think you'll feel much more calm whem you wake up than what you're expecting - enjoy the drugs! :)
 
I've been thru both awaking intubated, and not liking it one bit, being freaked out that they were letting me choke to death on my own saliva. (Surgeon had told me I would be totally disconnected from everything when I awoke, so I wasn't expecting what happened). That was the 1st time, but the next 2 OHS were very easy to awake from. You open your eyes, and suddenly your brain kicks in, that you have made it thru another surgery! I was not intubated for the last two, so I cannot believe how many people are still intubated when they awaken from surgery. My last surgery, 12 hrs, was like it was 12 minutes. I also was so thirsty, and only got ice chips, and that was regulated by my own ICU nurse.
I was so alert upon awakening this last time, I felt like I could've walked the hall.
 
Hi! Mine was mitral valve surgery, but the experience was very similar. I was on a gurney in a pre-op holding area, and the anesthesiologist said she was giving me something to "help me relax". The next thing I knew, I was waking up in ICU, about 8 hours later. (It just felt like a blink, though.

I still had the vent tube in, but on the advice of a friend who'd had OHS, I had developed a mantra, pre-op: "Don't fight the vent." When I woke up and felt the tube in my throat, those words kicked in, timing themselves with the machine. I stayed calm, and found the whole venting experience interesting.

If you're naturally a positive, funny person, you may even find yourself joking with family and staff! I had one very concerned (and LOUD) visitor who asked how I was doing. I got my clipboard and with a straight face wrote that my ears were working great--thanks for asking!

One thing that really helped me when I was still vented was having worked out--and practiced--a couple signals with my husband: "I love you", "I'm in pain", "I'm tired". Just being able to communicate that little bit really helped my morale a lot!
 
Mine was a blink and awake...two days later. My surgery was on a Monday and I was very concerned about waking up with the breathing tube and freaking out. I really don't remember it. My mom tells me I was squeezing her hand, I was trying to talk to her by sign language which unfortunately she doesn't know, she even had a piece of paper that I had tried to write a message to her but really was just a bunch of scribbles. ;-) Tuesday I only remember two things. I remember them saying the ultrasound IV tech was coming and I remember seeing my mom and my friend both by my bedside sleeping which dawned on me was not a good thing. Apparently Tuesday I was sitting up in a chair, drinking, told the surgeon I didn't like him...don't remember any of it. When I finally started really being with it was Wednesday. I saw on the erase board in my room a bunch of marks that looked to me like a date that was two weeks past my surgery and I freaked out thinking I was out for that long. My friend told me that actually those were the marks they were using to keep track of how many bags of plasma and platelets they had to give me on Tuesday. My chest tubes tore inside (not normal at all, I have a condition of very weak tissues) and I bled out. I wouldn't worry about what you're going to remember, or not. The drugs they give you are wonderful!
 
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