Post Bypass Heart Surgery

[eastont]

I had a mild (??) heart attack and discovered my arteries were clogged which resulted in a quadruple bypass. That was 9 months ago and I'm still having issues that I feel are not of the morn. My GP has said it will take time, but a friend had similar surgery 5 months ago and is feeling almost back to normal.
I'm wondering if any of the members here have any experience with this, or actually suffer the same issues listed below.
- my chest scar is swollen, red and sometimes stings terribly
- I have no strength at all, I keep a pair of pliers in the kitchen to open bottles
- when taking our little bichon for a walk, I'll pull back on the lease, but he sometimes is stronger....so I'll sit down LOL
- if I try to do anything that requires stamina I last maybe 10 minutes, then I'm panting like an old dog. Especially if it is using my upper body.....like gardening etc.
- my short term memory is almost non-existent, I will forget something immediately.....like speaking to somebody, being asked to do something, or out of 5 things that I went to the store for, I will forget 2.
- I've paid my credit card bills twice
- I have a back issue which requires medication every 6 hours and occasionally I will sit and try to remember if I in fact took it, or if I just didn't fill my pill reminder


My wife is very understanding, but I can hear it in her voice when she asks me if I did something and I'll have no recollection of it. On the other side, when we discussed some of our stock holdings, and decided to dump one of them because we had concerns as it was in the car rental business, I forgot to do that and it went from $2.00 to almost $10.00 share.........lucky I guess.

I've surfed the net for hours and can't really find any definitive situation similar to what I an experiencing. There are lots of people posting some but not all.

So if anyone has any real experience/understanding I'd appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance.

Oh yea.........the boats still in sick bay and it's going to rain today or I probably wouldn't have posted this.

 

[JB]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

Been there, done most of that, still doing a lot of it. Two stents, an angioplasty and a double bypass over the past 18 years.

A lot depends on how old you are, how much you weigh, whether you are diabetic and what condition you were in when you had the bypass.

Scar should not be tender 9 months later. See the Doc.

A supervised cardiac rehab program can deal with strength and stamina up to a point. Only regular exercise can keep it up. Medicare will pay for it if you are there.

The memory issue may have nothing to do with the heart situation. It may be just age. I have similar failures to remember if I have taken medication, if I have done something I planned, etc., etc.

My solution to that is a note pad. I write down everything I need/plan to do, refer to it often and cross off what is done. That is particularly important when grocery shopping. Without a shopping list I would either starve to death or go broke from buying stuff I never eat. If I forget to write it down. . .well. . .it won't happen.

I carefully log every bill, when I paid it with what check number and do double accounting to keep track of my bank balance.

I am 73 and live alone in my dream home. I have to keep things in order or my children will make me move to a town or city. I do realize that living alone with a bad heart, diabetes and severe osteoporosis will shorten my life by about 10 years, but it is my life and I am still in charge.

It is very, very easy in our situation(s) to suffer some self pity, eastont, and to feel rather helpless. Allowing those feelings to take over is very bad for the other things that got us here.

Take some positive action to show your body (and brain?) that you are still in charge.

Good luck to you, Amigo.

 

[i386]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

After my step dad had a valve replaced he seemed to be in a daze for a few months. It was as if he was daydreaming or preoccupied. Some said it was the anesthesia but my mother said he felt like he shouldn't be alive so it took him a little time to accept that he was going to keep on ticking. It took him a few months to get past that but now he's back to his old self.

 

[boatguy19]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

i to just had two heart attacks one in the end of april and one in the middle of may this year, i just finished having quadruple surgery two weeks ago and im up and about. the surgery went well from what they said im not moving fast yet but im also 61 yrs old. all my money is exhausted from this, i rent my home been here seven yrs and never missed a rent payment until may just got a eviction notice i have less than 30 days to move out . i dont know if ill have the strenght to do it. i think the best thing for me to do is just sell everything and start over, sorry for rambling on here. as far as your incision goes it should have been healed within two to three weeks at max, you should not be sore at all you need to go to the doctor right away and let them look at it pronto. i hope you feel better soon.

 

[grob705]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

Well, I do have to agree, it does take time. About this time last year I was beginning to recover from multiple stents, angioplasty of legs, aortic vein in neck replaced, blah, blah. 6 hospital stays in 4 months, each time involving cardiac related surgery.

Some things you will never completly recover from. You will build stamina, slowly. Your strength in hands and arms will come back, slowly. Your memory will return, to a certain degree, slowly. All in all, you will recover, slowly, lol. Remember, you spent a hell of a lot of years tearing the body down, it will take a lot of years to recover. Good luck.

 

[wajajaja02]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I would expect you to be better than you describe with regards to the bypass, the surgery site. I would go back to the cardiologist, and maybe a different GP, I was diagnosed with a arrhythmia and told to live with it, nah went on the net and learned about a cure and found the doctor who invented the procedure, was on his table in 30 days. Persistence pays with your health, time kills.

 

[Bass Man Bruce]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I don't have any experience in this area but would like to say that if you think it is the Docs job to oversee your health you are making a big mistake. He/She is only one part of the team.
Your constant learning (finding second and third opinions) and questioning is essential.
Good luck!

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I've never had heart surgery but my dad did and I watched his recovery. Based on that, I would say that the redness and tenderness with the chest incision is not at all normal. I agree with the others who advised that you get it checked out.

Shortness of breath and fatigue can be caused by issues other than heart problems. Failing kidneys is one example. I would go to a doc that can give you a full workup, just to check other possibilities.

 

[Bob_VT]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

Oh boy..... I had heart attacks in July 2007 and stents put in. I was offered open heart and turned it down. I am nowhere near where I was and my Dr keeps prodding me to have bypass and open heart. I have been putting it off but, I know it's coming .......... Honestly I am scared that I will be worse than I am right now.

Hang in there is about the only advice I can give and just like JB stated write stuff down and present it to the DR.

 

[Bigprairie1]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I'm not sure but it sounds like you might need a bit of a medication adjustment. Again, I'm no expert on this but a bunch of heart attack/incident related medication, which for the moment I'll assume you are still on, includes all sorts of system thinners and suppressents and they affect different people in different ways and on different levels.
You might want to talk with your doc (Cardiologist) and tell him your issues and see if he has dosage adjustments or substitutions that can help you get back on your game.
Good luck on all of it!! keep swinging.
BP

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

One other thing that comes to mind, is that the redness in your incision scar may be infection. If so, that might be explanation for at least some of your fatigue.

I realize that we are all being amateur docs to some degree, so I think that the best advice is to get to a real doc asap, to find out what is going on.

 

[eastont]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I've been back to see all the specialists and the cardiac surgeon asked if the actual heart surgery was okay. His interest and care is only what he did, so of course the scar and other issues are not to do with him, because some other doctor would have done the stitching etc. And the internist who I saw, says just wait and all will be okay. My GP says he's not sure just what the cause is and is doing blood tests, chest xrays etc. Being in a small town, there are not a lot of choices for specialists unless you go to a "big city" and then if it's not urgent the appointment can be up to a year away. I'm on a waiting list to see a cardiologist in Toronto, but because Toronto is over 3 hours away, if there is a cancellation my chances of getting it are very slim.

Thanks for all the comments, I was hoping someone might actually be experiencing the same, or similar situation.

 

[jay_merrill]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

The blood tests that your GP wants to do may rule out a few things. As I mentioned before, I am aware of a couple of conditions that can cause symptoms that are often associated with heart issues. The business about kidney problems is an example. The good news is that the blood tests can detect some of the abnormalities that could be problematic. That said, once again, I'm not a doc and don't play one on TV, so keep pressuring the real docs to figure out what is wrong.

 

[JB]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I'm on a waiting list to see a cardiologist in Toronto, but because Toronto is over 3 hours away, if there is a cancellation my chances of getting it are very slim.

That explains a lot.

Did you really mean if there is NOT a cancellation you won't get to see the Doc??

 

[eastont]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

That explains a lot.

Did you really mean if there is NOT a cancellation you won't get to see the Doc??

My appointment is February 5th 2010...........

 

[NoKlu]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

AAHH... only in Canada eh! Time to start shopping around for a real Doc. These days they would rather let you die than get you fixed. Go into the nearest hospital that dosn't recognize you and do a pirouette in the emergency room and hit the floor grasping at your chest. Sounds drastic but it's the only way to see a specialist here without the waiting. Your medical records don't follow you and they can't access them by computer so they will have to run all the tests to see if you are still blocked some where. When they start asking you questions about your doctor you can't remember who or what they did. My mother was in the hospital on intravenous for 3 weeks steadily getting weaker when one of us looked at the bags of stuff they were pumping into her body and noticed all she was getting was saline!!! NO FOOD FOR 3 WEEKS !!! We got them to give her some food and with in a week she was getting stronger and they were talking about sending her home. In our system the left hand has no Idea what the right hand is doing.

 

[P 0 P E Y E]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

Wishing you all the best.

Never give up the ship.

 

[eastont]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

I saw my GP yesterday to go over everything and see if there is a conflict in meds, or something was missed or overlooked. He sent the xray to a different radiologist he knew to re-read the xray, because he did not know the one who sent him the report.
It came back with the same result except it said I had COPD. I immediately wanted to know why the first guy didn't see this. But when going over the original report the same finding is there, but very difficult to see. It was buried in with the last verbage at the bottom of the page: The finding of copd was noted by Dr. XXXXX on May 20, 2009 blah, blah, blah.

I looked at it and didn't see it until I was shown it. It was the lower case that through it off.

Anyway, I'm going to see a respiratory specialist as soon as I can. A couple of weeks at worst case. This is probably the reason for most of my fatigue and lack of stamina. As for the scar, it is inflamed and only time will heal it. The anti-biotics don't/won't do a thing. It's called kelodic (sp) and caused by nerve endings......it will be a year September 26 and if it's still as is we will look at seeing dermatologist about surgery.

In the meantime, my boat is fixed and ready to go with it's second "new" stern drive. After today the forecast is for 5 days of rain.........boo hoo.

 

[JB]

Re: Post Bypass Heart Surgery

Don't know exactly where you are eastont, but I think it is east Ontario.

Fishing up there this time of year is better in the rain. No sense going boating if you don't plan to fish.