I Survived Open Heart Surgery

Many of you will know this, but I was born with the genetic heart condition, hyper tropic cardio myopathy. I have a thickened wall in the outflow of my heart where it was creating a serious pressure gradient, and making my heart beat faster. And both of those served to allow less oxygen to get out of my heart. I was on medicine to slow my heart rate so that the oxygen problem would not get too bad, but it hit the point of having to have surgery.

My cardiologist sent me to one good surgeon, but my family wanted me to go to the excellent UCLA Cardiac Unit. We ended up going to a couple of doctor’s because of some issues, but after a couple of months surgery was scheduled.

I immediately got a stress headache that lasted the month, and was not helped by a lot of stress at work, and having to work right up to surgery.

On the Tuesday before surgery we got a call and they moved my surgery up a day to make sure it fit into the schedule. We had to call the day before, and they kept making it earlier in the day until we had to be there at 5:30 am. Met family there and checked in and they called us in shortly and took me to pre-op on the second floor with my wife. I got changed into my dressing gown, peed a few times, and saw a bunch of nurses, and a couple of anesthesiologists. And at 8:30 they came in and gave me the anesthetic, and wheeled me out. That is the last I remember for a while.

Here is me in pre-op and with my first IV put in.

Waking up in the ICU is a complete blur. Just some images and feelings. I saw my wife and the nurses and then my family, but it was all a blur.

This is me with Kelly, still unconscious, and with the breathing tube still in.

After I am initially awake with my mom.

And here I am with Kelly after the surgery.

And here with with Kelly where you can see the horrible things that inflated on my legs to keep me from getting blood clots.

And here I am retaining some serious water.

The nurses were amazing. And so helpful, but that first night was hell. I was told it was from being stretched out on the table for so long, but I have never felt muscle pain like I felt that night. I just couldn’t get ahead of the pain until they gave something via IV that knocked out the pain.

That first day my favorite thing in the world was ice chips. Water, I would immediately throw up immediately, but a spoonful of ice chips was like heaven.

Then I developed a severe atrial fibrillation, a weird heart rhythm that was all over the place. They tried everything to get it back, from drug cocktails to playing with the inserted pacing wires and trying to re-pace my heart. Finally they put me under for 10 minutes and tried to shock me back into a sinus rhythm, but it didn’t work.

Me not looking so good.

Later they had me go for my first walk, which was not that bad. Honestly doing kettle bell exercises for the month before surgery made a huge difference, and while I had trouble moving around in bed, I had no trouble getting up or laying down. I went for my first walk, made hard by having to push my own IV stand, but when I sat back down the arythmia was gone. Still I was having pvc’s which are
pre-cursors to an arythmia, so the arythmia could come back.

My first walk.

At this point I had a popcycle, which was amazing. Other food not so much as my throat was destroyed by the throat tube I had during the surgery. I mostly ate plain chicken breasts and jello in the hospital.

Sitting in my chair.

And they were slowly unhooking me. First my catheter, then some IV’s including the large one from my neck, which was a mistake. They ended up needing another IV line for the drugs for the arythmia, but I am exceptionally hard to find veins in, and I had 3 nurses each poke me at least 3 times before getting a second IV in, and that one would only draw blood or one night.

The third day they took out my chest tubes and pacing wires and that hurt like hell! And I bled allot, so much that they had to do an echo to see the excess blood around my heart, and they had me on lasiks to try and pee it out.

My First Look at my wound. Amazing that those are stitches. Can’t even see them.

Me with the worst food of all time, that stir fry should not have been called food.

The 4th day it seems was all that my insurance approved me for, though my doctor wanted 7 days, and they kicked me out of the hospital, at least a day too soon in my opinion.

Ready to go and hugging to my pillow for dear life as every bump was not pleasant.

The drive home was horrible, as I felt every bump in the road, and it was not pleasant.

The first night at home was at least quiet, as the ICU is literally the loudest place on Earth. There are more alarms, phones ringing, people talking, etc. It could not be louder, plus you are getting poked and prodded every couple of hours. Of course waking up to pee 8 times in the night was not much help. In fact from when I got home I weighed 242 pounds and in 2 days down to 222 pounds having gone in around 235 pounds.

At home in bed. You can really see where the chest tubes were here.

At home I was still getting night terrors, which are so surreal and scary and terrifying. And they left me in pools of sweat every night, but they only lasted a few more days.

Food was a strange thing, as my taste buds have reverted to those of a child. Plain thing and simple things. Tastes that would normally bore me. I have not even been able to take any spice, and I normally love spicy anything.

The pain in my muscles has gotten better, but not for days. It has been an awful, all over pain.

Now I am just about out of my prescription pain meds, so I am sure I will be in more pain, as Tylenol doesn’t do much (and Advill and Aleve could cause bleeding).

Each day I am doing better and walking farther, and getting a little better. I can’t believe how good I am now, as the first week was much worse than I thought it could be. Horribly bad, but things have gotten so much better. I mean much of my main wound is peeling off and the skin has healed.

Walking with Kelly, the button up shirts are key as you can open them quickly once you are in the shade.

My wife got me a universal position electric chair, which could also help me get up, though I really don’t need that. That has been incredible, and is so comfortable, that I am really going to miss it! I highly recommend it as well as the kettle bell exercises before surgery. They have made a huge difference!

My wound after 2 weeks. Looking pretty red, but the scabs are almost gone from the main incision, so I couldn’t be happier.

And I don’t know what I would have one without my wife, who stayed with me the whole time at the hospital in ICU and my mother who was there most of the time. The two have helped more than they could ever know.