So....what did you do today? part 3

rebuy

A month ago I was cooking out, hauling 40 lbs bags of dirt around, you know, he manning around.
I had a pain in my shoulder. All the work I was doing around the house and all the lifting just thought I was sore.
To be on the safe side, I ran down and had it checked at the local country hospital. Next thing I know they have me in an ambulance and sending me to the Charleston Area Medical Center for fluid around my heart. Charleston has a great heart center if that is your problem.

My cardiologist ran a nuclear stress test and told me I had to have a heart cath because he saw some abnormal blood flow patterns. Scared me pretty good. So he did the heart cath. During the procedure in which you are awake, he wanted to use stints to correct any problems. About 20 minutes in he told me that stints would not do me any good and I would require open heart surgery. Talk about a bummer! I had one artery that was 90% blocked and another that was 70.

A day and a half later I had a triple by pass. Today is the 3rd week since the operation and I'm at home now recovering. It has been so surreal, I can hardly believe this has happened. My body is very sore but I have the best family support and they are taking very good care of me. Having a loving family is so important with a healthy recovery.

I cannot lift anything over ten pounds and cannot drive yet but my family is getting my back.
I am just so glad to be alive and have had no complications. So far so good. I'm on this side of the dirt!!!!!!

I did not have a heart attack and have been told my heart is very strong. It was a good thing we caught it before I had a heart attack and damage was done to my heart.

I was feeling quite healthy before I went to the hospital for a "sore shoulder".

Three weeks and counting..... Good health to you all.

chumlie

Congrats on catching it early and staying on the correct side of the dirt. How long is recovery going to take ?

PSOVLSK

Good on you for going to the doctor. If it were me I'd still be running around with 90% and 70% blockage.

Congrats on a successful surgery, and a here's to a full recovery.

rebuy

6 to 8 weeks as far as I'm concerned for recovery, I'm not going to rush it. They cut you breast bone apart to get to the heart and it has to grow back together. I think broken bones take about 8 weeks or so, I don't know about ones cut with a Black and Decker.
it takes 4 to 6 weeks for the insides to recover and I have to take it easy and let every thing that has been stitched together grow back into a solid piece. You gotta be careful not to rip the inside of your body apart with too much exertion.

I have been washing with surgical soap to kill anything that would try to harm me.

I was blessed to have such good doctors and CMAC is a World Class Heart Center. I could not have been treated better.

Sherardp

Glad you are well and feeling better. Mind if I ask your age? Any regular check ups? I'm 34 and wondering when I should began getting these full physicals done. So far I get BP, Diabetes screened, and few other things. Your thoughts?

Dennis Gardner

Good to hear you are feeling better. Take it very easy. Take your meds, esp. those blood thinners, even if they make you tired. The last thing you want is a stroke from over doing it too soon. Way harder to come back from one of those.

Drenis

Get well soon. Scary indeed. My mom's fiancee was delivering some ATV's off his flatdeck tractor trailer and he had a heart attack. However, he was so stubborn he went with pain for almost two months and never said a word.

Even I am trying to become less stubborn.

cnh

Good catch and great to hear you're on your way back. Out of curiosity, did you have any precursors, indicators that there may have been some heart problems: i.e., hypertension, high cholesterol, HDL.LDL level imbalances, shortness of breath, palpitations or racing heart arythmias, cold sweats and so on.

In other words had your regular doctor "ever" indicated that you had any of the above or other symptoms which would mark you for potential heart disease, because 90 and 70 percent blockage do not occur overnight? Just curious.

You know, a lot of us, males, that is, don't get regular check ups and think we're indestructible until something like this is diagnosed. Let that be a warning to everyone. I just had a 24 hour heart halter test done because my heart was racing occasionally. Waiting for the results to come in: Anxiety or heart disease? I already have hypertension. Aging. It sucks!

Take it easy and get well soon!

cnh

rebuy

Yes, I had a minor HA about 2 years ago. This happened to me while I was sitting on the couch and using the net. It did not feel like a HA and I went to my Dr. just to check it out and had it confirmed by a hospital. Since then I had been on meds for cholesterol, high BP and had regular check ups. All my numbers looked good and I really have been watching my diet. Funny, when I had the first one, I did not have the classic systems that we all think of. It was like a pressure on top of my chest and that's all. No pain down the arm or shortness of breath or anything else. I really had no prior indication that anything was wrong. Every year I had to pass a DOT physical for my work.

I did not want to get any type of heart cath or surgery because my wife had a cath 3 years ago and she had a stroke as a result.
She has recovered very well from it and is doing so much better. So I really had a lot of anxiety before going into the surgery because of what she went through. But I am happy to report that I had 2 operations and so far, no complications.

I have always been a pretty healthy guy with no operations since I had my tonsils removed when I was a kid. If you think something might be wrong, get it checked out. Better to be safe than sorry.

Oldfatdogs

Take care of yourself rebuy,glad your on the mend.
Dan