on the other side

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jake

Well-known member
Joined
Jun 19, 2010
Messages
147
Location
Detroit Michigan
well im on the other side and OMG it hurts. its getting better every single day.

ive been up and around and let me tell you i hope i never have 2 do this again.
 
Jake ... this ain't for sissy's:biggrin2: ... just take it slow ... it takes time but you should see progress everyday ... glad you are over the mountain:thumbup:
 
Hang in there Jake.This seperates the men from the boys.Trust COOKER it gets alittle better each day.Hot showers and back rubs helped me along.I will be 2 weeks tommorrow Dec 5
 
Welcome to the "other side" Jake. It might not seem like it now, but it does get better. Just take it slow.
 
Jake like the others have said just take it slow.It really will get better soon.First 3 days are the hardest.Glad to see you on this side of the mountain!
 
well im on the other side and OMG it hurts. its getting better every single day.

ive been up and around and let me tell you i hope i never have 2 do this again.

I would complain to your nurses and doctors if you are having alot of pain, they need to either increase your meds or try other ones so you aren't in as much pain. There is no reason to be in awful pain
If the pain is in your sternum incision, (not sore muscles in your back, neck ect, it really should NOT hurt as bad as yours is. Of course it isn't pain free but it should be more sore and uncomfortable than really painful,(for example, Justin needed 2 rods put in (then later removed)his forearm after he broke it skateboarding. he had a couple heart surgeries before and after, and at the time of the broken arm, he said it hurt way more than his sternum ever did after his OHS, we kind of wonderred if maybe it was because if had been a couple years since his last heart surgery so maybe he wasn't rememberring that pain as well but a couple years later when he had more heart surgeries, he said looking back his arm did really hurt more than his sternum does after surgery.
There is no reason for it, they are not doing their job managing your pain as well as they should be. Before all of Justin's heart surgeries (and my Mom's) they discussed with him how important pain control is, and how it helps with your healing and doing everything you need to do to recover well if you are in not alot of pain, so he was to tell them IF he was in pain and they would either increase the meds or try other ones to control his pain. It's hard to do your breathing exercises and walking as much as you should if you are in bad pain.

I know you've had other surgeries so know how much easier it is to control the pain if you keep ahead of it and don't wait until the pain is bad to take meds. So once they get your pain under better control, take your meds when the time is up and don't wait for the pain to get worse.

Hopefully today is a better day all the way around.
 
good times

good times

well they have kept me pretty much doppded up the whole time. The level of pain meds are good just stuff like caughing, chest tuberemoval, getting up and down. mid today i really got around got around the corner pain wise. they took me off the iv meds and now its just oxies. i gdt kinda dizzy wshen i get up but it gets better over time.

i have a bunch of new aches and pains that will resolve soon enough. I have to say that realistically, i am shocked at how fast things are progressing to the posative. These people have this system really down to an art.

Im so lucky to have this site.
 
Day 4 will be the big turning point, you should feel a lot better, the first three days for my ohs was hard. Hang in there, be proud of yourself!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
"I have to say that realistically, I am shocked at how fast things are progressing to the positive." sounds like my story, too.

If your pain isn't responding to the meds they start you with, my sister RAVED about Delauded (sp?) when she had otherwise unresponsive pain. It seems to be both super-effective and very pleasant.

Personally, I've been shocked at how LITTLE pain I've had (and how few pain-killers I took). I'm sure all the surgeries and the nerve placements, etc., are different, and I also seem to have inherited part of my late Dad's absurdly high pain threshold.

He once came home from his shop after a day at work, with a rag stuffed inside his shirt. When my Mom investigated, she discovered that he'd been held up and stabbed during the day! She insisted he go see a Doctor, being a way more "normal person" than Dad ever was!

My own crazy pain stories have both been dental. After I lost a capped front tooth to a squash racket, my dentist started preparing me for a 3-tooth bridge. Grind down the adjacent teeth to cones, then glue a 3-tooth "appliance" onto the two cones. I asked him to start the grinding without freezing my mouth first, and he agreed. He was using one of those high-speed grinding drills, with a water spray. We made it all the way through, but several times, I noticed that the pain had gone up a couple of notches, and I got him to stop and spray the tooth some more, because it was overheating. (Neither of us likely would have known if I'd been frozen.)

Years later, I talked that dentist's successor into pulling one of my wisdom teeth without freezing! Wait, I can explain! I had a w. tooth that was week and wobbly and painful, and ready to go. I went to the dentist so he could pull it. My other w. teeth weren't great, either, but the wobbly and painful one was the only urgent problem.

For some reason, the dentist started by pulling the w. tooth OPPOSITE the wobbly and painful one. I didn't care much what his plan was, as long as he got the wobbly and painful pulled. He froze my jaw to extract the solid, sound w. tooth, and I certainly didn't object. Then he finished and told me to make another appointment for the others. WHAT?!? Aren't you going to pull the one that REALLY needs to be pulled???

It turned out, he would never agree to freeze both sides of a patient's mouth, because that presents a high risk of maybe swallowing a tongue, or at least biting one hard. So I asked him if he'd pull the other one WITHOUT freezing. He said something like "If you're crazy enough to ask me, I'm crazy enough to do it!" So that's what we did! I'm not saying that I was silent throughout, or that he did NOT suffer hearing loss in one ear, or EVEN that we did NOT clear out his waiting room -- but the tooth got pulled, and the pain stopped almost immediately, and I've never regretted doing it.

I had one pushy (and humorless) CVICU nurse who thought I should get Morphene injections at every turn. I turned down the first one, under protest from her, and there was no pain at all. When they were going to pull the chest tubes, she seemed way more insistent, so I let her give me the (2ml?) of Morphine. It made my vision go wonky for several hours. Hard to tell how much the pain would have bothered me without. I bet it would have been somewhere in-between those two dental jobs.

Later, the nurses wanted to give me E.S. Tylenol AND two Codeine pills for pain, but I didn't have much, so I asked if I could at least skip the Codeine. It wasn't their first choice, but they weren't too pushy about it. We all agreed that I could get more later if I seemed to need it.

Then the VERY pushy post-op Cardiologist came around, mostly to talk me into taking the Codeine pills. Her story was that I would never push my lung exercises hard enough if I was in touch with the pain, and the exercises were vital to my recovery. I still said no. Given my nature, I was honestly nervous that I'd push TOO hard if I was doped up.

Then, when the 2nd-banana surgeon (surgical aide?) from my surgery came by on rounds, he asked about pain and meds, we all told him where I stood, and he said "Oh, that sounds great! In fact, if you just shift the E.S. Tylenols to an "as needed" basis, that's also fine!" (YAY!!)

Then the VERY pushy post-op Cardiologist came around again, cranked up my I.S. to a higher level and tested me. For some reason (Maybe because I'd gone for a walk, or maybe just God's sense of humor!), I experienced a breakthrough, and did much better than I ever had post-op! She had to agree that it was fine, coming along nicely. She never conceded the point, or allowed as how patients with different pain thresholds might want to have different levels of pain-killers.

BTW, it's NOT that I don't feel pain easily, or that I don't mind it. If you dropped a golf-ball on 100 people's feet, out of the blue, I might scream the loudest! My shins -- and now my sternum -- are so sensitive to the touch, that I start protecting them when somebody's within 2 or 3 feet away! (That I may have inherited from my Mom!) But if it's a specific, known pain, and I know the cause, and I know that it's part of my healing or cure, and if it's tolerable to me, I'd rather ignore it than block it with drugs.

Right now, day 4, without even Tylenol, I thank God that I haven't had the urge to sneeze, and coughing is a "wait, hold everything" activity that is NOT pleasant! Blowing my nose is a major challenge, and I've just started getting that "buzzing" sound again, esp. when my nostrils are moist. Sitting up in bed (without using the motor) is much easier than a couple of days ago, even rolling over on an elbow or pushing gently with a hand. I just carried a bag of food from the floor fridge and back, maybe 5 pounds total, and it felt like I was close. I held it right against my body, with my other hand helping a little.

Weird things -- like washing my hands! -- are surprisingly painful now, and have to be done slowly and gently. I'm glad I don't have to applaud for anybody, because I bet clapping would hurt.
 
Glad your over the mountain. Every day will improve. Take baby steps.Don't overdo it.
 
I agree with everyone Jake, I gets much better, & quickly. I can't believe how good I feel just 16 days after surgery. I may not have a ton of strength, but I feel good. Only pain meds are now Tylenol & Advil.
Appetite is not quite back yet, but that is due to the meds. Don't be afraid to push yourself and don't be afraid to back off when you've pushed enough.
 
I am so glad you are doing so well. I did take 5 mg of oxycodone 1-3 times a day for about 1 1/2 weeks. The funny thing I found painful was opening up child proof medication bottles. We stopped by the drug store and had the lids swapped out a couple of days later.

Debbie
 
WSHEW What a dzay of ups and downs

WSHEW What a dzay of ups and downs

well let me tell you all today had it all. for anyone on this rollercoaster, just pissing has become a game changer. by the way, warm water DOES work!

Just typing this has slowed radically as somehow my left hand ulner nirve got its bell rung causing my pinkey ans second ring fingers to sweell up and go numb making typing a real trip.

I finally got into the stepdown unit and im running just a touch of a temp (like 100-100.5). HR s like 115 but stedy. The pacemaker hasnt gone off yet.

Chest tubes r gone as are most of all other tubes. only the pacemaker leads and i iv remain. the walks r getting longer and longer and im getting propped up in the chair for hours at a time.

I really felt wipd out 2day but i continue 2 eat solid food and breathe into the plasetic meter without much improvment past 2000c ml.

im looking forward to day 4 and hope to get good news from current chest xrays and labs.

I thank you all for your well wiahes and prayrs and advice. If I can manage to get a BM going, th9s will really make my day. predtty routh when one is preying for a BM.

bless u all for your help.
 
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