Surgery Outcome

I want to extend a HUGE thank you for all the well wishes and support I have received from all of you. It has been so comforting and over whelming to receive so much love and support from all over. I want you all to know how much it is truly appreciated.

Well I have been home for a couple of days but needed to take the time to rest and recover.  I have been pretty much sleeping for the last 2 days as I have been just completely exhausted. Not to mention super sore and stiff.

It is so very true that you do not know how much you use a muscle until it is hurt or injured.

So here is what happened…

We went to the hospital way early.  I would say bright and early but the flipping sun was not even up yet and it was miserably cold.

Took forever to get through all the pre-op preparation stuff.  Plus I found out that my procedure was going to be done in a new operating room and the team had to set it up for them before I was brought in.

Jumping ahead, was taken into the OR and met the team that was going to be taking care of me.  I have to say that they were a bunch of great people with amazing humour and really put me at ease.  I wasn’t really nervous other than not really knowing how things were going to pan out.

The IV lines were started and I was strapped down to the table. 

I was not knocked out for the procedure, told I would be sedated and most people fall asleep under this sedation.  Well I was not so lucky.  I had not gotten much sleep the night before ^» 01 so I was hoping the sedation would “push me over the edge” and I would fall asleep.

No such luck, in fact I didn’t feel sedated at all.

Took a lot to freeze me on top of being fully awake.  Which was not pleasant, I will openly admit that!

So anyway to stop rambling along here…

The first 2 wires went in rather easily.  One sits in a chamber at the top of my heart and one sits in a chamber at the bottom of my heart and these are the wires to facilitate defibrillation, which will shock my heart back into a normal rhythm when I start to go all wonky.  This is not at all unlike what you see in movies and TV shows where they put the paddles on a patient and shock him or her.

However, what I really needed from the procedure was a third wire which was to be fed into my heart and then out through a blood vessel on the back of my heart that wraps around and sits on the left ventricle ^» 02 which would be there to give my heart a shock every time it would beat to replace the impulse that should be there naturally but because of my LBBB ^» 03 does not happen.

Basically, this would make my heart beat fuller and take the burden off.  This is what would drastically improve the way I feel, improve my energy and reduce the symptoms of my heart failure.

Unfortunately, when the wire was inserted into the vessel it tore and started to bleed into the sac that surrounds the heart which then put extra pressure on my heart, basically squeezed my heart so it couldn’t beat or pump the blood.

Let me tell you that was more pain than I have ever experienced in my life before.  If I thought my first episode was painful this was a whole new eye opening. 

We had to remove the wire and stop the procedure.

So the battery part of the device was attached to the 2 wires already in place and then tucked away under the muscle and I was closed up.

So I am part way there.  Unfortunately, this 3rd wire was the really really really important one that I needed.

We now have to wait for this vessel to fully heal before we can proceed again.  So I have to wait 6 to 8 weeks for this to happen.

I did have an ECHO the next day and it showed that the vessel had stopped bleeding so that is a good sign.  I have been instructed to not take my blood thinners for a week to be sure I do clot fully and start the healing process.

So, I have been laying very low.  Lots of time on the couch, catching up on TV.  It really is about all I can do.  I am restricted on what I can do with my left arm as I need to be very careful to not dislodge the 2 wires that are there now.

Let me tell you that pulling on your socks with one hand is NOT easy!

So that’s what happened.  Kind of farther ahead but not really. 

It is a little frustrating.

turnipHed

turnipHed has a huge interest in men’s fashion, which includes; underwear, swimwear, leather, rubber, neoprene, spandex and being nude.

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Here Are the Foot Notes…

1. as can be expected ↩ 
2. lower left chamber of your heart and the biggest chamber that pumps all your blood to your body ↩ 
3. Left Branch Bundle Blockage ↩ 

Don’t forget to go back up and keep reading….

Posted by turnipHed on 6 January 2012. Filed under turnipHed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry