Hey Lyn, that is some pretty good feedback and advice for those that will be going through this in the future. Believe it or not "pain management" was a huge topic of concern for me. I discussed in detail with most everyone. Surgeon guaranteed that the CTU (cardio thoracic Unit) nurses will keep me as comfortable as possible. Though, there are some confusing things about "pain management". If you are in too much pain, you cannot recover, if you are too medicated you cannot recover, therefore there must be a happy medium. On day 0 for me, when I was in bed, they made sure I was mostly comfortable. When I was in pain, I would wine to my brother, wife or nurse and I was getting shots of Fentanyl (I think) or maybe something else every so often. Issue with being drugged up is that side-effects often make you less productive and more sedentary. Starting with day 1 post-op, I spent every waking minute doing something productive, either using spirometer, or talking to people, or walking around or something. I refused to be stationary. I was not in the mood to sit-down and give-in or give-up. My guess is that I was making lots of progress on day 1 and when they saw the progress they just figured that I am comfortable. I complained and was getting pain killers, but the way they worked out a schedule was time spaced (4 hour intervals). In retrospect this was a very good thing. 2.5 days of medium suffering, from chest tubes mostly, cause once they pulled them out I was pain free and nearly pain killer free.
Thinking back, I could stand the pain and it was just something that I wish I did not have to deal with, however, given the choice of getting my body back faster and less pain, I would chose the get my body back faster route every time. I know that my surgeon and anesthesiologist knew that about me, and perhaps there were some notes somewhere instructing nursing staff as such
Today is day 9 and I am virtually off all pain killers, I still take Tylenol 3 before bed. I think that if they had me drugged down any more that they did my progress would have been limited or at least slightly delayed. Still, I always appreciate your (and others, of course) posts and perspective it gives me a another angle on the situation and gives me things to think about and act on.
I'm glad looking back you think it was best for you, but it shouldnt be that hard to find the happy medium where your pain levels are low but you arent too drugged to work at your recovery. Most people find that is the case. I dont believe it should BE a choice there is NO reason to have pain and you should still feel mentally with it to work as hard as you can to get better quickly
BUT You can have enough pain meds to be comfortable, slight pain and still be able to function well or even better. Unless it was something weird like moving rooms etc Justin's pain was very small and he also spends as much time walking laps, doing his breathing everything he decided early on all the things you need to do to get better and home ASAP. Even the surgery where thy had to move muscles, they still were able to keep his pain low and he was able to do all the work needed to get back to better than before. Sometimes they just need to play around with meds, tweak things IF you complain until they can come up with a plan that you are not in pain but can function.Even tho Justin's pain was controlled well he still was alert enough to play playstation in CICU less than 12 hours post op.
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