Anyone here had a Radical (was called full) Sternectomy Post Op as a result of an infection in the chest cavity?
I feel as if I have a six inch square metal breastplate on as to fill the void a prctoral flap was used leaving me with no upper body strength.
I would be interested in knowing how this has affected your day to day life.
Can you fly due to air pressure and if so do you experience much pain in take off or landing?
Can you even drive due to air bags? Or can we get thrm disabled?
What about CPR? Have you considered a "no compressions" tattoo?
Thanks in advance
Hello, sorry to hear you had such a tough time. My son Justin had an infection in his sternum and under it aftr his 5th OHS when he was 19, but they didn't remove his whole sternum, "just" cut out all the bad sections, the bottom of his sternum to quote the surgeon was "mush" Then he had a right pectorial flap to fill in all the spaces. I'm a little confused when you say you feel like you have a 6 inch metal plate, do you actually have one or it just feels like it, because of th muscle flap? They didn't use any plates or extra hardware when they put Justin's sternum back together. I just realized his was around the same time as yours June 07
Did they do cultures in June and the docs finger went thru your sternum? It sounds to me like that was already infected, because when we took justin back to the hospital 10 days after his surgery, for a spot where he was having a disolving stitch come thru, when they pulled the stitch, something didn't feel "right" so they stuck a probe in and it went right thru his sternum, so they admitted him, did all kinds of tests, Xray, echo were fine but the CT scan showed an infection under his sternum so he had ER surgery they next morning.
He had alot of problems with loss of strength on his right side, because of the muscle moving, but has got most of it back, it took alot of work, (He couldn't even use his fingers to play playstation in the beginning, which made for long days) they used his right side because he is a lefty.
He really doesn't have any restrictions because of it. He drives, but if air bags were a concern, I'm pretty sure they would tell you not to drive or even ride in the front passenger seat. The ONLY thing we really asked about since it is a big concern for Justin since he will need onoing surgeries, was if having this done, would keep him from having more heart surgeries in the future and they said he could still have them.
Otherwise he was just told do everything he could do before. He works part time as a stage hand and started back to work a couple months after surgery after his weeks of antibiotics and he had enough strength to lift things, I don't remember how long he was out, but it was a couple months
The scary part for me, is since he still has some of his sternum, it is RARE but parts of the infection can lay low in bones and pop up later, USUALLY if you make it a year you are safe, but Justin had a small infection pop up last winter in the top of the sternum (the 1 part that was good in 07) he came VERY close to having surgery (was admiitted and in preop for a couple hours) but at the last min since the antibiotics cleared it up, and his chest has been open 7 times and other problems he has that makes him high risk, they decided to not operate and give him 1 more chance to see if the infection is completely gone before they operate. That was in jan and so far so good. Oh he had a spot that looked like a small pimple, then blister whch is why we took him in to get checked.
I think you would have to ask your surgeon what you can do safely or should avoid, since so much of this is different for each person.
