Actual open-heart or simple bypass? I don't mean to diminish it, having been through a triple myself some years back. But people throw the term "open heart surgery" around inaccurately. A friend of mine from another forum did have "open heart surgery" back in August or so, because his aorta went kaplooey, and he was minutes away from dying. He ended up getting a new valve installed, within a day of being airlifted to Montreal, that he tells me his daughter can hear working.
Of course, if one has a stapled chest, and has to live in abject fear of sneezing, farting, coughing, hiccuping, laughing too hard, having to push a turd out a little too hard, or anything else that brings your diaphragm into the equation, lest your sausage-casings pop out, you don't really care whether the surgery was IN your heart, or simply around your heart. It's still gonna hurt for a month and a half. And in both instances, the chief surgeon is going to make the executive call as to when to switch you from your own circulatory system to a heart-lung machine and then back again.
But yeah, getting wheeled into the O.R. at the Heart Institute, and wondering whether you will ever get to wake up again, as they put you down for the count, DOES have a way of realigning your priorities.
I have two humorous stories from my own surgery to relay. As you probably experienced, they tend to shave you "like a Vegas showgirl" before surgery, because, even though the main act is upstairs, they prep you for emergency access via major arteries down below. When I woke in post-op, with tubes and cables going in and out of me everywhere like some lame-ass pedalboard, I saw my beloved wife. My wife smiles, leans over the bed, and asks "Can I get you anything? Is there something I can do for you?" I motioned to her to come closer. She leaned in, over my face, expecting to hear something poignant. I said in a weak voice "Can you
please scratch my balls. I am SOOOO itchy, and I can't reach them, or ask the nurses to do it for me." Apparently my voice wasn't weak enough to escape the hearing of the nurses nearby, who collapsed with laughter. My wife, adorable devoted woman that she is, reached under the sheet, with a look that I can only liken to the look on Bugs Bunny's face when he massages Elmer Fudd's scalp in the "Rabbit of Seville" cartoon, and got down to business.
The other funny story occurred about 6 weeks post-op. As you may have found out, or probably will, when they staple you back shut the nerves they cut to be able to get inside don't always "know" where to grow back to (assuming they are intact enough TO grow). And there can be some weird sensations as the big chest wound repairs itself and the nerves try to figure out what bar the rest of the band is presently on. I still actually have a spot on the scar-line, about an inch long, where if I touch it, I don't feel it there, but feel it in my pectorals, close to my armpits. Anyways, I'm driving along, and I start to feel a prickly sensation on my chest. Wasn't the first time, so I figured it was just more of the same. A few minutes later, the pins-and-needles sensations got more intense. In my head, I'm thinking, "If this is the price of being alive, it's still a great deal." I keep driving. The prickly sensation grows worse until I finally have to stop the car, get out and stretch to "reset" my body. And when I do, I find out that the poppy I had been wearing on my shirt breast pocket had fallen off and slipped inside my shirt. The "pins and needles" was an actual pin, jabbing me repeatedly.
Heal well and fast, my friend. Life and greatness awaits.
