Ahh, OK - I missed that you were trying to make a funny. I was quite tired and somewhat stressed when I read that entry, so my sense of humor was off.Wookie, I know that that laser drilling was not appropriate in your case. I was trying to make a rather feeble attempt at humor (obviously, I’m still not a very funny person) in that Wookie was up and about so soon.
I was fortunate in that what I had was more routine surgery rather than emergency surgery. I really had to twist my doc's arm to get me a referral to a cardiologist; once that happened things started falling fairly rapidly into place; and by the time I was on the slab in the lab, the surgeon had a great deal of information to work with, and no surprises. Also, he is the chief cardiac surgeon at the hospital, and has performed over 10,000 bypasses.Good doctors and general health condition are really important in this situation, but being tenacious and strong-willed are almost as important. Now I’ll be nice and say it’s the Marine “can do-will do” training coming out rather than what I’ve often observed as normal male stubbornness.
It sounds like Beenthere's operation was really an emergency, with surprises thrown in. While what I went through wasn't exactly "a walk in the park", I certainly had a far easier time of it than Beenthere did.
Keep in mind, my doc went in there with multiple road maps, while Beenthere's doc would have had to more or less "go with the flow". My surgery was also far less complex, as I did not need any valves repaired.Those of you that have been on the site for a number of years might remember some years back when Beenthere dropped out of sight for a period of time (this was several years before the cancer stuff). He had an emergency quad bypass (two 80% blocks, two 100% blocks) with a valve repair thrown in. They had to put him on an external pump to keep him alive while they got a “special” specialist in to do the surgery. He was given a 10% chance of surviving the initial surgery. His surgery lasted somewhere around 10 hours. He was intubated (breathing tube) for 2 days, sedated for 3 days, sat up at 4 days, in ICU for 12 days then 3 more days on the regular floor. I’m sharing this to emphasis how well Wookie is doing by comparison.
Yes, but even with using the pillow as a brace, it was still quite painful.With the coughing, I’m assuming they showed you how to clutch a pillow to your chest and cough.
This. The 1st lung drain tube was removed 10 hours after surgery. The last one came out this morning.This was something that they forced Beenthere to do on a regular basis. I think it had something to do with warding off buildup of fluid in the lungs.
Oh, and they gave him a big red heart pillow (with anatomically correct drawings) to use. I guess that’s better than a giant stuffed teddy bear.
Last edited: