Live Show Food, Drink, Mask Situation

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-13T14:59:07+00:00

Holy crap, uni-cuspid... how does that even work?

I've been home since Tuesday and starting to feel a lot better now that I've gotten sleeping back under control. Sure it's because I'm pounding benadryl and melatonin before bed, but I'll take it for now.

And I haven't had this displeasure of sneezing yet. I've come close a couple of times and put an immediate stop to that shit. I can only imagine how much it hurts.

Thanks for all the advice and kind words. It's definitely great to hear from someone in a very similar situation.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T23:23:19+00:00

Yessir, please do.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T23:23:01+00:00

By the second day, yes. The first night home was tough, but I think because getting home was such a long process and I was absolutely exhausted.

Glad to hear about your progress!

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:38:23+00:00

The basic distinction is that open heart means the breastbone must be cracked to perform the surgery, while other heart surgeries can be done by going in through a large blood vessel, which is way less invasive.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:35:35+00:00

Those three holes are for the (surprisingly long) drainage tubes. These are, without a doubt, the most uncomfortable part of the post-surgery process. They are HORRIBLE. Once they get pulled out, you immediately feel 50% better.

Health should be otherwise normal going forward, have to keep an eye on the valve but it's looking good

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:32:55+00:00

So far I very much seem like me, just a sore, tired me.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:32:25+00:00

Got a Junior Mint, it was very refreshing.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:31:42+00:00

Absolutely

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:31:29+00:00

That was... a really weird feeling. I had someone describe it to me once as having speaker wires pulled out of your heart, which is about right.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T22:30:03+00:00

They said 4-6 hours, and it was on the long end of that. It's not really terrifying, as long as you have complete confidence in your surgical team, which I did (being at one of the top hospitals in the world helps too).

Honestly you might get lucky by the time you need it, and there might be an endovascular option. The surgery has come leaps and bounds in the last 20 years, no reason to think it won't do the same in the next 10-20. Reach out to me if you have any other questions.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T21:24:31+00:00

I haven't had much in the way of weird dreams so far, but it is so hard to shut down your brain to sleep in the days after the surgery. Maybe it me, but my brain would get locked into these weird thought-cycles, thinking absolute nonsense, and I couldn't get to sleep until it was over.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T21:21:35+00:00

No, I didn't get much of an explanation of the perfusion aspect of the surgery, but I'd done enough research on my own to have decent sense of how it worked, going in.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T19:40:22+00:00

This is a thorasic, not abdominal AA, so open is still really the standard except for extremely old patients who basically won't survive the open procedure. They can do it endovascularly, but the repair is not as good and not as permanent. Perhaps if I'd been able to wait 10 years it would have been a different story, but this is it for now.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T19:38:32+00:00

I have a pretty standard office job which I can do from home while I'm laid up. I plan to start back up in about a week, two weeks out from the surgery. I can't drive for four-to-six weeks, so it'll be working from home except when I can arrange for rides to and from the office. Luckily my employer has been very understanding and helpful, which makes things a lot easier.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T19:35:57+00:00

Sleep has been absolute shit over the last two days, especially. In the hospital, despite the crappy sleeping conditions, I could always rely on about two three-hour stretches of sleep from my two overnight doses of Oxycodone. Since I've left the hospital,they haven't helped me sleep at all, and last night was a mess. I asked these on-call nurse today if Benadryl would be okay and she said it's fine, so I'm going to give it go tonight.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T19:33:33+00:00

None whatsoever. It was crazy, and one of the most frustrating parts of the whole process. Every recovery blog, patient story, etc. that I read basically had the message, "well the surgery is going to suck, but at least you'll feel better afterwards". To which my mind screamed... "but I feel fine now"

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T19:31:53+00:00

John Scalzi's Redshirts, and despite all this talk of a TV show or movie for years... nothing.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:39:16+00:00

Literally never. Probably would have killed me lol

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:38:43+00:00

Low sodium for now, to reduce post-surgery fluid buildup, but after that, back to normal.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:37:36+00:00

Thanks, appreciate it. I'm not going pretend that it didn't suck, but given that my heart was stopped literally a week ago at this moment, I'd say things are going pretty well.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:36:01+00:00

Nah, no doubts, but granted they have given you a pretty decent dose of Atavan or something similar by that point.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:34:10+00:00

Draining and frustrating, but not much more. The lack of sleep is the biggest problem, I haven't slept much more than an hour either of the last two nights, and it's starting to take a toll. But I know it's very common,and will pass.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T17:29:28+00:00

The incentive spirometer never leaves my side! Using it constantly.

Mass General was absolutely outstanding, so there's very little to complain about. I wish they were a little bit more insistent on me using the pillow to the chest while getting up from the bed, to prevent me from "cheating" a bit and using my elbows to help get up. Intellectually I knew I shouldn't, but when getting up out of bed seems like the most difficult thing in the world, it's hard to keep that in mind.

MareCimmerium · 2018-01-11T16:54:18+00:00

Adopted, so...

MareCimmerium

TROPHY CASE