The Open Heart Surgery Story

Brian had his surgery Thursday 3/4. I said, "See ya later at about 12p." Brian told his surgeon, Dr. Tsen, that he wanted a biologic valve and a bovine if possible. They gave us a pager to tell us when he was out of surgery. My mother in law, Nadine, the kids and I went up to Forest Park to eat lunch and go hiking. Macey fell asleep on the way up there. Elliott and I went hiking. Nadine napped in the car with Macey. The pager is only supposed to work in the hospital but it went off at 2p about an hour after Brian's surgery was suppose to start. Nadine tried to call the volunteers but they wouldn't/couldn't give out any information. We sped down the hill to Good Sam with all kinds of morbid thoughts running through our heads. It turns out that Dr. Tsen just wanted to let us know that he'd started surgery late. Dr. Tsen came to talk to me at about 4p. He said that everything went well and Brian got the bovine valve he wanted but also that his valve was very distorted and he had some other cogential abnormalities like a vena cava on the right. We usually only have one on the left, I think. I went back to see Brian at about 6:30pm. He was still intubated with many, many lines. Nadine didn't really want to see him intubated. I stayed till about 8p. He started thrashing around several times and the nurse assumed that he was in pain and his HR went to 120's so they gave him versed and morphine. I assume this is how it went all night. I'd hoped that he'd be extubated during the night.

Nadine went to work the next day so I wasn't going to be able to visit Brian until the afternoon, since the kids are not allowed in ICU. However, I had a friend watch the kids for a few hours. They extubated Brian at about 9:30a. I saw him at about 11 and was only able to stay for 30 min. He had most of the lines out and more coming out. He said, "I can't," when asked to push his pain button or really do anything including opening his eyes. I was orienting him to the day and time and said, "It's Friday, March, 5." He said, "April." Classic Zoe and Brian. He was in tears by the time I left and they gave him some Toradol (sp?). I came back at about 2:30p. He really wasn't much different except no more tears. The next day I had to work and Nadine had the kids so Brian didn't get much company till I got off work. They were working on transferring him to the floor but were taking forever because I think the RN didn't want to take any APL. Brian was the last person left in the pod. He ate a little chicken noodle soup before he left. He was starting to wake up at this point but by the time he was ready to get in the wheelchair he was suddenly very sleepy. He got up to 4W and immediately passed out.

Sunday I planned a little birthday party for Elliott and Macey and they had fun but my brother never showed. Again poor Brian didn't get much company but at least he was able to talk on the phone better at this point. I finally got over to the hospital late in the afternoon. Brian took a little walk around the unit. I brought some of the food from Mai and an RN friend made, which Brian couldn't eat much of. The next day Brian said they would likely discharge him. I guess they came by at 6:45a and he was really sleepy and were reconsidering discharge. Brian had had several doses of Oxycodone that night. He was doing better by the time I got there, about. We discussed it and he felt like he could go home. He still had an upset stomach and couldn't eat much but was getting tired of regular TV. So we left at about 2p. I went to get the prescription after he got into the car. He was not in pain. They said it would 30 min. However, the PA forgot to put durations on the medications so it took another 40 min.

Later we discovered that they had mixed up the lasix and oxycodone. Fortunately, Brian was not taking much Oxycodone. I had him put his meds in a organizer and blamed his pain medications on the mix-up but it was actually the pharmacy in too much of a hurry. I am glad Brian figured it out pretty quickly. He had a lot of heartburn, nausea, and stomach pain for the next 2-3 days. After a few calls to the doctor and couple of trips to the store for overcounter meds, he started feeling much better and was finally able to eat some food.

He has been able to hang out in the basement and rest most of the day with occasional trips up stairs. He gets pretty short of breath coming up the stairs but recovers quickly. He played with the kids outside Friday and has been spending a little more time upstairs the last couple of days. He has also been a more sore with more chest pain, which I think he thinks is odd because the chest pain really only causes him discomfort when he is trying to sleep. I think he has just over done it a bit in the last couple of days. His incision looks very good, the bruising is way down, and he is eating pretty much normally now. So here we are on the road to recovery.