Dealing with Heart Surgery

 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