Wrote this for a colleague a few years ago. Perhaps you'll find it useful.
Mental Health
·
You are going to be fine, but the hard part is
convincing yourself of that
·
You may feel crappy during your initial
recovery, but don’t sweat it since you will forget most of it anyway
·
You’ll notice the people asking questions and wishing
you well are really annoying, because they are freaked out and see their own
mortality in your face for a while; find other people with weird surgeries or
medical conditions to talk to for a while, they are much less annoying
·
If they go mechanical and the noise bothers you
try using a white noise app or machine when you go to sleep, and you can layer
a couple t-shirts on during the day
·
You can develop depression or become emotionally
distant for a while after the surgery; find a psychiatrist or psychologist and
don’t be afraid to call if you need
·
Yoga, breath, meditation
Family
·
Look for friends or family to wait with your spouse
in the waiting room, it is a long day and it helps to have a friend along
·
My wife and I slept with a body pillow between
us for a month or so to keep her from accidentally flopping her arm onto my
chest
·
Ignore most of the advice you’ll hear about intimacy-
by the time you want to you’ll be healthy enough
Physical Health
·
Your scar will go from cool looking to barely
noticeable over a year or so; it may itch but pain management doctor can help
with that
·
Follow the lifting restrictions, seriously
·
Cardiac rehab is a good way to feel safe as you
start to exercise more, but it is filled with people who had heart attacks and
need counselling on weight and diet; use the parts that you need and tune out
the rest
·
Walk every day, even if it is just five minutes
at a time for the first week or so
·
The muscles in your back can get tight for the
first few months as your chest knits back together; Bath & Body Works has a
peppermint massage oil that works great at loosening the muscles
·
You can try Vitamin E lotion to reduce and ease
scarring; maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t, can’t hurt to try
Doctors, Pain,
Medications
·
Get a 7 day, AM/PM pill box, it makes life much
easier
·
Pain medications are good and important, but try
to get off of it as fast as possible
·
Coumadin is a pain in the backside, but it is
manageable and you shouldn’t stress over it
·
Two side effects of Coumadin- you should
probably stop drinking alcohol and you should probably grow a beard
·
Feel free to question medications and their side
effects, if you don’t get answers feel free to change doctors
