Still in step-down unit

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Matunucktuna

Matunucktuna

VR.org Supporter
Supporting Member
Joined
Feb 29, 2012
Messages
27
Location
Rhode Island
Hi Everyone,
Well I'm now 7 days post op and still in the step-down unit. It feels a little like I didn't get to graduate with my class. All went as planned with the surgery (Bovine valve replacement for my BAV and repair of the 5.6 cm aneuryism) but there was concern in the ICU due to a slow and erratic heart beat. My heart has always been on the slow side, but never erratic. They have been on-the-fence over whether to install a pacemaker, so they have kept me here a couple of extra days so far for further evaluation. The procedure has been scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday) but they said that is just a reservation at this point since the final decision hasn't been made. Evidently they think it is a first stage heart block...something about the electrical signal taking too long getting from the atrium to the ventricle. Well have a wonderful day everyone.
 
Sorry you're having to stay a while longer in the hospital. That's never fun. Several folks here have had to have a pacemaker installed after OHS (including me). Not a big deal and if they go through with the procedure, it should prolong you hospital stay much longer, maybe 1 day. Good luck and hope you get out soon.
 
It was probably around the same time, 7 days, that my heart decided to also misbehave. Mine raced at 170 bpm and after
getting Sotalol meds it calmed down. Many people end up with pacers and do very well with them. :)
 
mainframe said:
Sorry you're having to stay a while longer in the hospital. That's never fun. Several folks here have had to have a pacemaker installed after OHS (including me). Not a big deal and if they go through with the procedure, it should prolong you hospital stay much longer, maybe 1 day. Good luck and hope you get out soon.
Click to expand...

I could have written Chris's post as I too had the same issues .....your medical team are poros and you are where you need to be ....make sure you are walking then rest then walk again......see you here on the board soon
 
Shoot guy, I hope that your doctor's have make some kind of descision soon. From what I have read pacemaker isn't too big a change to your life (easy for me to say I don't have one). Anyway, just hang in there and I will continue to keep you in my thoughts until you are home a on the good road to recovery. :)
 
Matunucktuna, glad to hear from you. Sometimes the heart takes a little bit of time to get used to new parts. Your team know what they are doing, and I wish you for a speedy recovery. How are you feeling otherwise?
 
Sounds like what I went through. For the first few days after surgery, my heart rate was all over the place. Too fast, then too slow, then skipped beats, extra beats and finally long (20-25 second) pauses. Finally we chalked it up to surgery-induced heart block and implanted a pacemaker. I was in the hospital 9 days for the combo of valve and pacemaker.

The pacemaker truly hasn't been an issue. We did go through a couple of versions of the various settings on it (they do that with an induction coil that they just place over your pacer) to finally get it to respond to things like exercise and so forth. I rarely even think about it except when I see it in a mirror.

Initially I was 100% dependent upon the pacemaker, but as time has gone on, I've become less dependent. I'll find out in a few weeks, at the annual check-up, how much or how little I now use it. I cannot feel whether it is pacing me or my heart is doing its own thing - it is just "there."

Hang in there. Trust your care team. For them, this is truly ". . . just another day at the office."

P.S. I get through airport security very quickly with it, too!
 
Thanks for the kind words of encouragement everyone. I'm sitting here waiting for them to take me down to install the pacemaker in an hour or so. Assuming all goes as planned, I should finally be out of here sometime tomorrow. Other than the heart block issue, I have progressed satisfactorily and have been wearing a path in the halls.
 
Pacemaker was installed yesterday afternoon. I spiked a 103.6 temp at 2:00 AM and they came in and took samples for testing. This morning temp is only a degree high and all the tests have come back normal. Hopefully I will still be discharged today in spite of that episode. They tell me I will be having an xray to check all is still in place with the pacemaker and after that they will do some additional testing of the pacemaker. Have a great day everyone!
 
Welcome to the Energizer Bunny club! You're now (partly) battery operated (as am I). We can just keep on going and going and. . .

Be careful to follow the doctors' instructions for the first few weeks after pacer implantation, especially the part about not raising your arm (the one the pacer is closest to) above shoulder level. This is to allow the pacemaker leads a good chance to adhere and bond to the arteries they are in. We don't want them to move, or strange things can happen.

Other than that, as long as your heart rate can go high enough to do what you want to do, don't worry too much about pacemaker settings for a couple of months. They usually won't tweak the settings right away, instead they tend to implant the pacemakers with the basic default settings that work fairly well for nearly everyone. After it has been in place for a while, you may want things adjusted a bit, and there is a lot they can do with pacers. I am no expert, but when you get to the point where you want a bit more from it, come on back and post a question (or PM me) and we can discuss what I've been able to have done with mine. There are a few other pacemaker recipients here who may also join in -- and there are other internet boards that get even deeper into these things. Lots of resources available, but you may not be ready for all this until you have recovered a bit from your valve surgery.

I know it is a bit much all at once, but we do manage to get back to real life sooner rather than later.
 
Matunucktuna, I hope you get discharged today and start your home recovery soon. Getting home flips the switch into overdrive and your recovery speeds up and picks up the pace. Plus, getting some sleep in the real bed will also give you more rest and your body needs it. That temperature spike at night could have been a reaction to something. I wonder if they gave you anything for it to knock it down and it went away or is kept at bay?
 
Hey Matu!
You are going to feel so much better with that pacer! I was in ICU for a week before they installed mine, and let me tell you, within 24 hours (once I got rid of some of the extra water weight from two surgeries in 7 days) I felt like a new person!

It may take 6 months to get the settings right, and for the first 6 weeks they'll probably keep you at a steady 80 bpm as a low point (which is too fast for me, personally) until you heal some. They'll tweak the settings several times until they are just right.

If you run or do other vigorous exercise, don't be afraid to ask them to bump up your top end bpm and accelerator.
 
I did get discharged on Thursday and yesterday (Friday) the visiting nurse stopped in and did her introductory paperwork, vitals and took out the staples. I went for two leisurely walks outside yesterday for a grand total of just over a mile. I was a little winded but not too bad, but my temperature did pop up to 101 about an hour after the second walk, stayed there about 2 hours and then dropped back to normal. Is this a normal occurrence after exercising following OHS ?

I also have a question about pacemakers. Do they automatically increase the heart rate during exercise or does the heart naturally take over the beat for rates faster than the base rate.
 
Hey Matunucktuna, glad to hear you are home. Your temp regulation will get better and better. If you push yourself a little your body will tell you in many different ways. If you are feeling up to it, just repeat the walk from yesterday today and see if your temp is good and your body happy. Every day I try to do a tiny bit better than the day before if there were no signals from my body. If I did get some signals, I either take it down a notch or several notches the next day or if I feel really good repeat it before advancing any higher.

How is that spirometer treating ya?
 
Your pacemaker should increase your heart rate if your natural pacing does not. Pacemakers have a couple of ways to determine how fast to go. They can sense the pacing speed your heart is trying to achieve. If natural pacing does not happen soon enough, the pacemaker "fills in the blanks." They can also sense how fast you are breathing. The faster you breathe in and out, the faster the pacemaker goes. They can also sense bouncing or other rapid movement of your body, and increase your heart rate from that. Usually when pacemakers are first implanted, these sensing methods are set to be very "easy-going" and to not accelerate your heart rate rapidly. After a few months of healing, they will adjust the pacemaker. You can tell them what you are feeling and what you want to be able to do, and the technicians will try various settings to get what you need. Be patient - these initial settings you probably have are not the final ones.
 
Hi Greg,
The unit is a Medtronics bibolar pacer (RVDR01). Since they found a 6mm "nodule" on my lung prior to OHS they want to do 6 month MRI followups, so they implanted this MRI compatable version.
 
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