One year anniversary since open heart surgery

sarahp

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Wow, I can't believe I almost missed my one year anniversary!

This time a year ago I was in ICU, regaining consciousness, and they were getting ready to remove my breathing tube.

I had an awesome initial recovery, but since then have had multiple (minor) problems - atrial fibrillation, staph infection in the incision that came back and needed to be reopened to drain (eww), scar continually getting wider, keloid scar, PVCs (fluttering heart beat), and now a wire causing me grief, not to mention the regular worry that something else might go wrong.

But I'd do it all again knowing that at least that it is fixed, and anything that may ever go wrong isn't likely to be life-threatening, and knowing that unlike my dad and aunt who had the same condition, I will reach my 30th birthday.
 

addiebee

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Whoo hooo!!!!



So glad you cleared that very important milestone!!!!
 

blast-off-girl

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Congratulations, Sarah! You are so young to undergo such a major surgery. I am glad that you have recovered so well.
 

gailc

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Time flies!! I remember you posting about that you did triathelons before the surgery??
Have you been able to regain any training?
 

capt_jordi

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From one open heart surgery patient to another: Congratulations! And many vibes for more healing!
 

strange_wings

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It really doesn't seem like it's been a year - though it seems like this year zipped by anyways.

Are/were you having runs of PVCs? Cause unless you have extended runs of them, they're harmless.
Every single person gets them at some point, it's part of everyone's "normal" rhythm. If one's heart didn't have these odd irregular beats and was actually constant with no change ever, it would mean their heart was very very sick. A bit of organized chaos that all nature has, in other words.
Of course, I know this doesn't make them feel any better. Luckily I only feel really feel them when my heart rate drops under 60bpm, so only when I've been laying down. Mine have felt like fluttering, extra beats, and skipped beats - it's an annoying thing to have wake you up at night.

Any luck with Cigna and getting the scar treated? I hope you can get the wire problem fixed soon, too.
Don't you hate it when it seems like one thing after another?
You just want things to get better - not more bad news.
 
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sarahp

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Originally Posted by GailC

Time flies!! I remember you posting about that you did triathelons before the surgery??
Have you been able to regain any training?
I don't like running, so haven't bothered with that, and won't until I've shifted some pounds, otherwise it'll wreck my knees. I don't enjoy cycling here. Back where I used to live in Australia, it was a small city (300,000 people) in the middle of nowhere, and there was long roads that wound through the countryside past sheep, cows, kangaroos and beautiful homesteads, and the roads would be empty apart from our pack of 20 or so cyclists. We'd go for a big ride, then go to one of many coffee shops back in the city afterwards, and never worry about cars, and you'd only have to deal with a few stoplights. I did triathlon for the friendship and the experience as much as anything, and so it's just not the same here.

I tried swimming earlier this year, and my chest muscles and ligaments and everything else were still sore and weak and all the pools around here are very average (I was spoiled back in Australia, in our small city we had 5 indoor 50m pools openn from 6am-10pm within a 15 minute drive from my house). We recently joined a new gym which has a nice little 3 lane 25m lap pool, so I started swimming again and really enjoyed it, but I started with 2 big swims in a week, and the PVCs started so haven't been back since, but I'll try again this week.

So basically, the short answer to all that is no - I haven't done any training, and I don't think I will.


Originally Posted by strange_wings

Are/were you having runs of PVCs? Cause unless you have extended runs of them, they're harmless.

Any luck with Cigna and getting the scar treated? I hope you can get the wire problem fixed soon, too.
Don't you hate it when it seems like one thing after another?
You just want things to get better - not more bad news.
I realise they're harmless, but it was weird they started all of a sudden a couple of weeks ago, and I wore a monitor to see what was going on, and I had 700 of them in the day they monitored me. It's been happening every day since, but has settled down a bit. It started after I did a couple of big swims, so I'm a bit nervous about getting back into exercise, especially as they happen when I get a bit puffed, and they cause my breath to kind of catch, but I'll try again and won't do so much exercise next time.

I thought once I had surgery I would be completely healed and could live a normal life, but my life is more disrupted now than it was pre-surgery. Oh well!
 

strange_wings

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Did you ever have any sort of cardiac rehab? Or maybe you can consult with someone for some suggestions. Definitely take it slow, there's no point in pushing yourself and ending up unwell from it. You only lose more time to being sick.

At least you can exercise.
Just cleaning the house or cooking a meal wears me out so much that I can't even imagine dedicating time to exercising. I can't deal with the heart rates it induces either - I've given up measuring and just settle for calling it "too fast" now.
 

carolpetunia

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Originally Posted by strange_wings

Did you ever have any sort of cardiac rehab? Or maybe you can consult with someone for some suggestions. Definitely take it slow, there's no point in pushing yourself and ending up unwell from it. You only lose more time to being sick.
Slow and steady is the way to go. I can hardly believe a year has passed -- congratulations, sweetie!
 

snake_lady

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Wow, congrats on such an important milestone


that you continue to improve, slow and steady
 
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