quick rundown of surgery

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xtremlee

Went in on tues sat there till thursday then was doped up 30 min late wide awake going to surgery heart rate 180 finally went to sleep at the door. Woke up wiht the tube and it stayed there for 6 hours. stayed in ICU 36 hours no bed. Icu nurse held pain meds on me for 8 hours (witch). Dr chewed her good. MOved to a private room finally a suite room. Had a little neasua not much. Stying on alot of pain med due to first pain in my back it quit. Then alot of pain only on my right side feels like broken ribs. I think Im still getting over anatsethia. The dr told me I would have alot more pain than an old lady due to that I am 6'1" and weight 230 and have alot of muscle. Im getting better by the hour. Over all if I had to do it again I would. Can anyone relate to the anasthesia?
Lee
 
Hello Lee, I'm glad to here you are back with us but sorry you had to wait 8 hours for pain meds after surgery. Im go in on the 19th and I hope no one does that to me. I'll pray that your pain gets better. Did you mean if you had it to do over again you would or you wouldn't? You stated you would and I found that odd, only because everyone else here said they wouldn't. Well, "any who" I will be praying you recover well and have no further complications.

Ronda
 
Lee, it is so good to hear from you & to know you are through surgery and getting better "by the hour."

Lee, you ask, can anyone relate to the anesthesia? Yes, I can relate to the problems after anesthesia. I had nausea from when I woke up in ICU to when they were finally able to control it -- with a drug called Zofran (also used to help with nausea for people going through chemotherapy). I give my ICU team great credit for working so hard to deal with my nausea. Once the nausea was under control I never had it again, through the rest of my time in ICU or the rest of my hospital stay. But I think some of the effects stay with you for a while -- I had headaches for some time afterwards that I think are related to the affer effects of anesthesia. But they went away about a week & a half after I got home.

But, good grief, you waited six hours for pain medication in ICU? Clearly there are different pain management standards in different hospitals across the country. Not only did I not have to wait, I don't remember ever being in pain. I was so well doped up that even when I was having dry heaves in ICU from reaction to the anesthesia I had no chest pain at all.

Remind me to write a note to the hospital praising my wonderful ICU staff.
 
Lee,

I can't really relate to the anesthesia which is surprising, because my surgery lasted over six hours. They took my vent out about 1hr after I woke up, so that didn't bother me either. I did have nausea when they gave me morphine, so they gave me some Zofran and switched me to Fentanyl which didn't cause nausea in me. Unfortunately it is very short acting, and my nurse was not giving me my doses on time. Finally the charge nurse "kind of" took over my pain management issues.
 
Welcome to the 'other side' Lee.

Sorry you had such a rough time of it.

Back (muscle) pain can be a real 'bear'. Stretches and Massage often provide more and faster relief than pain pills. ASK your nurse if it is OK to have your back massaged. I (we) use a vibrating disk massager what works wonders on overstretched muscles.

Yep, nausea and vomiting from the anesthesia is pretty common. (Been there, done that). Did you get a suite on the 9th floor? Be sure to tell your insurance company that you got that room (LOTS of extra $$$) 'because there was no room at the inn' (i.e. on the heart surgery floor) and it was NOT by your request (in case the hospital tries to stick you for the extra cost).

Right side pain could be due to a lot of things. Ask them if your lungs are fully inflated. Ask if you have fluid in either your lung or in the chest cavity between the lung and your chest wall. OR, if your chest wall was irritated (and inflamed) by the chest tubes. NOT an uncommon problem. IF the latter, it might require a brief course of anti-inflamitory medicine (even if you are on Coumadin).
Let the surgeon make that call.

Don't ask how I know all this 'stuff' :eek:

'AL'
 
Lee,

It sounds like you had a rough time with the pain and all, but so glad the surgery went well and you are here to tell about it!! :) It is quite the experience to go through, no doubt about it.

May the rest of your recovery be very smooth and swift.

God bless -
Christina L.
 
Thanks for posting, I was wondering about you. I'm sorry to hear of your difficult experience. Maybe we should start a new tradition of several vr.com'ers can come and stand watch for the first 48 hours or so after surgery. I hope things get better for you soon.

bethanne
 
:) Hi Lee, Glad to hear you are home. I had no nausea or vomitting post opt, but I did get what they said was the hugest gastric dilation they ever saw and kept asking me how my stomach was. They only gave me 2 doses of narcotics because of all of this and then I didn''t eat or drink anything but small quanities of ice chips for the first 4 days. I was told I was lucky my surgeon had small hands because my incision is 3inches and they did the aneursym and valvereplacement. I was lucky to be able to handle the tylenol for pain. Talk more later :)
 
Lee, Glad to hear you are back and on the road to recovery. I can not relate to the anesthesia either. I know that it stays in your system for a while but I didn't have any nausea. I had 7 hours of surgery and my tube came out about 5 or 10 minutes after I woke up. They gave me ice chips shortly after, and I did fine. Hope everything continues to go well for you.
 
My incision is about 8" but Im a big guy. I woke up in ICU before I was supposed to and the put me back out. The surgery was only about 3 hours with valve and maze. He is a very good surgeon. Im just very sore talk to yall later. :)
 
Lee-
I had a lot of nausea after surgery for at least two days, despite medication. The nurses were very good about pain management, asking often what my pain level was. I remember telling them that the nausea was worse than the pain.

I have had trouble after nausea after every surgery. I would guess that some people are more suseptible to it. After the nausea went away everything tasted bad for about two weeks. The only thing that was really appealing to me was fruit.

You will be feeling better soon.
 
I was trying to figure out how my prior response had anything to do with the thread, and realized it was in respnse to KathyH's 3" incision. Whew! Thought I might have left some cells in the pump, there.

Anaesthesia:

I had a hard time waking up. They would rouse me, and I would write lucid notes to them, even upside-down with my left hand. I would convince them to turn the breather off, as I was really upset by fighting against it to breathe. As soon as they would turn it down, I would relax. Then I would immediately fall asleep and "forget" to breathe again. Cycle would start again a few minutes later. It went on for hours. I had my surgery at 8:00 AM. I started waking up around noon. They finally were confident enough to take the tube out at quarter to five. Left a nasty fat lip for a week from some kind of clamp that was on it.

Nausea:

I had a "Near Vomit Experience" two days after I came home. I believe Bryan did as well, minus the "Near" part. Those seemed to be associated with pericarditis and fluids, though, rather than anaesthesia backlash.

Also, most people seem to take morphine and its derivatives for pain control. Nausea is a not-uncommon side-effect of the narcotics.
 
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