TakeStock
Well-known member
After posting my pain ranges in this thread:
http://www.valvereplacement.com/forums/showpost.php?p=381535&postcount=15
... I realized I wasted too much time focusing on avoiding pain post-op. There was pain, but really just the general discomforts of the hospital bed, including getting in/out of it, the noise from outside and the equipment, the feeling of being in a foreign environment, etc., those things were more bothersome than the "pain" issue. And every trip to the hospital has those types of problems. I was at the same hospital around New Years Day for 3 days for my endocarditis IV treatment. And I can recall being miserable that first night as I just could not fall asleep in that bed, with the IV in my arm, lying on my back and with the nurse coming in each hour. I lied there all night, got maybe 20 mins of sleep and felt very icky for much of the day. And I had ZERO pain during that time as my strep infection's symptoms went away a day before I was even admitted. Comparing that first night 3 months ago with my last night post-OHS, there really wasn't much of an overall discomfort difference. Yes, I had a little more pain this time, but the sum of other discomforts can overshadow a pain level of 3-5 from your surgery.
In fact, if I had to do the surgery all over again, but this time I had a choice of (a) recovering from day 1 from home with a private nurse (having control of my environment), or (b), staying in the CVICU but having 4 less points of pain throughout the experience (i.e. essentially being painfree the whole time), I'd probably go with option (a)!
My main point is that recovering from any surgering will be unpleasant, but for me at least, OHS recovery is nothing to be particularly fearful of. The only thing worst about OHS is the length of time to recover and the risk of death or major complications, not so much the day-to-day difficulty compared to other surgeries or hospital stays in general.
http://www.valvereplacement.com/forums/showpost.php?p=381535&postcount=15
... I realized I wasted too much time focusing on avoiding pain post-op. There was pain, but really just the general discomforts of the hospital bed, including getting in/out of it, the noise from outside and the equipment, the feeling of being in a foreign environment, etc., those things were more bothersome than the "pain" issue. And every trip to the hospital has those types of problems. I was at the same hospital around New Years Day for 3 days for my endocarditis IV treatment. And I can recall being miserable that first night as I just could not fall asleep in that bed, with the IV in my arm, lying on my back and with the nurse coming in each hour. I lied there all night, got maybe 20 mins of sleep and felt very icky for much of the day. And I had ZERO pain during that time as my strep infection's symptoms went away a day before I was even admitted. Comparing that first night 3 months ago with my last night post-OHS, there really wasn't much of an overall discomfort difference. Yes, I had a little more pain this time, but the sum of other discomforts can overshadow a pain level of 3-5 from your surgery.
In fact, if I had to do the surgery all over again, but this time I had a choice of (a) recovering from day 1 from home with a private nurse (having control of my environment), or (b), staying in the CVICU but having 4 less points of pain throughout the experience (i.e. essentially being painfree the whole time), I'd probably go with option (a)!
My main point is that recovering from any surgering will be unpleasant, but for me at least, OHS recovery is nothing to be particularly fearful of. The only thing worst about OHS is the length of time to recover and the risk of death or major complications, not so much the day-to-day difficulty compared to other surgeries or hospital stays in general.
I've gone through childbirth five times, 3 were in the 10 pound range, and I would prefer to go through OHS multiple times rather than go through one more labor or C-section.
