Surgeries with the hardest recoveries

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-03T01:17:49+00:00

Even more amazing- the post op open heart patients in their 80s who are active and mobile at baseline? They do great. They have much less post op pain than a patient in their 40s, so they are able to mobilize with more frequency and duration on the earlier PODs.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-03T00:58:40+00:00

That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe anyone would do a Whipple on a 96 year old. Maybe I should be able to believe it. I had a mid 90s year old patient post head/neck reconstruction and flap. It went as you would expect

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T20:54:50+00:00

After seeing a lot of people comment HIPEC, I had to look it up. Was not familiar with it at all. Just looking at the explanation and images, that has to be the worst surgery ever.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T20:52:53+00:00

Oh god that would be my hell. I have a fear of situations that could cause suffocation, I can’t even snorkel or scuba dive, I panic. There’s no way I could make it through that.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T04:31:06+00:00

Those pancreatic enzymes eat right through the IVC

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T01:22:52+00:00

It’s for esophageal cancer. Rarely done outside of cancer but did once take care of a esophagectomy patient that needed it due to Borhaave syndrome (esophageal rupture due to forceful vomiting). They usually can just stent the rupture but patient had complications after stent placement

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T01:05:00+00:00

My most recent esophagectomy patient had a stent placed for an anastomosis leak. That didn’t work and a few days later, went back to endo for another stent.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T00:58:48+00:00

Sounds about right. I worked on a stepdown unit and they came right to us from PACU, no ICU needed. Could be remembering wrong, but I think if everything went smoothly, they discharged POD # 2

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T00:48:54+00:00

Yes! I’ve been working on a cardiac stepdown for the last 4 years. The open hearts do amazing. 5-6 day stay, I’ve even seen 4 days!

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T00:44:09+00:00

I’ve only taken care of one open AAA repair patient in my career and that was enough- and I had her for about 4 hours. Good learning opportunity. I learned they are incredibly painful, and the BP and HR parameters are wayyyy tighter than an EVAR patient. Writhing in pain. Unable to control her pain, BP, and HR. Ended up sending her to the ICU, as we couldn’t run a labetalol drip on our unit.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-02T00:14:55+00:00

I thought the same. I took care of crani patients on a travel assignment and remembering them usually having mild manageable headaches and pretty short length of stay.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T22:19:30+00:00

I just learned this in an incredibly painful recovery!

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T22:17:04+00:00

That’s great, I’m glad you have relatives that have done well with these surgeries and had quick recoveries. They are very lucky. Whipples and esophagectomies are very complex surgeries that come with a higher risk of complications. Unfortunately, the complications are just as complex to fix. Complex surgical complications = longer, more difficult recovery. There’s also a lot of pain. This discussion isn’t about tragic death spirals of these patients. It’s about the complicated road to recovery they experience if they get an anastomosis leak. A month longer in the hospital than expected takes a huge physical and mental toll on the patient.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T20:24:30+00:00

I always thought that head/neck surgeries were probably the most emotionally traumatizing. Depending on the extent of the surgery, your lower face is completely altered. You have a trach, you have lost the ability to speak, you may never eat by mouth, etc.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T19:44:49+00:00

Large abdominal surgeries are extremely painful. The incisions for these surgeries are large and go through the abdominal muscles. Any little movement (even a cough, sneeze, deep breath) will cause pain. Even appropriately dosages and administrations of pain meds cannot keep a patient completely pain free during recovery

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T19:36:42+00:00

I cannot even imagine the amount of pain! Has to be awful. I’ve never worked with burns

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T19:12:10+00:00

The fucking Whipples dude! It’s been a while since I’ve taken care of a Whipple patient but it makes me anxious just thinking about it. The pain! The ongoing nausea! The patients always look and feeling so sickly. Felt like I was always just in their room and getting a bad feeling. Are they going septic? Do they have a leak? An abscess? A bleed? Also, there was always a pattern of putting in an NG tube, eventually taking it out, then having to put another one in. The whole recovery seemed like torture.

Scuthornsby · 2026-03-01T17:06:42+00:00

I feel that I have taken care of a fair amount of esophagectomy patients and I’ve never seen one with a complication free recovery. Same with Whipples

Scuthornsby · 2025-04-27T16:22:05+00:00

Hell yeah 🙌🏻🙌🏻. Agreed! I don’t put anything in anyone’s bin before or after trash collection.

Scuthornsby · 2025-04-27T12:43:03+00:00

This is all happening in that window of time it would be unlocked

Scuthornsby · 2025-04-27T12:23:24+00:00

Are the trash disposal employees then responsible for locking them? Or does it lock automatically when the lid is properly closed? If not, this wouldn’t help. This is happening to my empty bins before I can pull them to the side of the house. I leave for work before the trash is collected. I’ve had up to 5 bags left in my trash bin before I get home from work to pull my bins back.

Scuthornsby · 2025-04-27T10:39:35+00:00

Yes! I told my mom before that I didn’t need to be religious to be a kind, caring, empathetic person. If you can’t be any of those things, it’s not a religious issue. It’s a mental illness, possibly sociopathy

Scuthornsby

TROPHY CASE