Emily's Photos

Welcome fellow massachusite. My new word of the day. What is your hospital? Mine was mass general. We are lucky we have some great doctors within easy reach. Mine was mitral, yours is different but the fear before surgery affects us all. As you say, have faith in your doctor, your surgeon, and faith in general. After all, a positive attitude counts a lot. Plus you are young. My kids are your age. This is a great site that has some fabulous and very smart folks that comment. I am not one of the smart ones but i attempt to lighten things up on occasion. My shadow has a lot of the same markings as your kitty if you have ever seen him.

I would like to say thank you to all who welcomed me when I first came on. Going through this second open heart surgery in just 3 years has been so incredibly difficult for me the day before my aortic valve replacement I was told I needed another bypass on the original one from 2021 I had blocked up over 95% and they didn't know why. I have to say this journey for me has been very difficult this time extremely painful and I'm finding myself terribly afraid of everything. I'm trying to rely on my faith 🙏🏼 in the Lord and my beliefs but just knowing that my bypass blocked up in only three years has made me so sad I have no idea what I've done wrong to cause this and I find myself being so terribly frightened of everything if anyone else has had a bypass that had to be redone in a short time please let me know. I have been home from the hospital since July 2nd and it's been a very difficult and painful go of it. I have my 17 year old son who has been a wonderful help here along with my fiance my daughter comes by they have been getting me to go up and down stairs outside and for short walks but I find my chest is very painful. Had to go off of all pain medications a week after leaving the hospital because of severe constipation problems that they caused. And I find the pain in my chest is much worse at night and it is in the morning and early day. So very sad 😢

So sorry to hear you’re going through all this Emily. Have you talked to your surgeon’s office about not being able to take your pain meds to see if there is a different pain med you could try, or if you could take something like dulcolax with your current meds to prevent the constipation issue? It sounds too soon to not have any pain meds on board, especially if you are having a lot of pain remaining. It’s hard to cope with anything when you’re in pain and it’s hard to see your way through it when you can’t get relief. Small , flexible ice packs helped me. Hope you find a solution and get more comfortable soon!

Hi Diana the surgeon's office support has told me about the dulcolax which is starting to work unfortunately as far as pain meds go other than a thousand milligrams of Tylenol every 6 hours my body is so very sensitive to pain medication that it my blood pressure is run so terribly low.

Have not been on since the day before my surgery. I wound up going into the cath lab because I was feeling so poorly the day before and found out that my bypass had blocked up over 95% and just 3 years when they did my surgery the next day I received the inspiris resillia valve. Surgery went well came home from the hospital in a lot of pain replaced my right main artery also again I'm 12 weeks out now on Friday from surgery I'm going to cardiac rehab Mondays Wednesdays and Fridays this will be my second week still having a lot of sternal pain really not able to use my arms to above my head or to lift anything I get my steps in while I'm at rehab and try to do my best while on the off days I can only get in maybe 5 to 6,000 steps a day on rehab days I do over 10 to 12,000 steps a day because I will still go for walks after I get home have been having terrible troubles still with constipation. Stop taking all pain meds a week after I got home because of this problem and it has not resolved I've tried everything it's making me feel so poorly especially when I'm trying to exercise they've told me now that I have a genetic mutation that causes my LDL to be high and they want to try different things on me they want to keep me on ezetimone along with the rosuvastatin and now they want to add praluent injections every two weeks. Not sure how I feel about this I was having very good blood pressures in the 118s to 122's over 60 to 65 now they have fallen very low for the past two and a half weeks to 100 over 58 never getting above 105 / 58 when they had this low I feel dizzy and just not myself having trouble with eating I'm so scared to eat anything not doing very well with trying to decide what I should eat and just keep turning to just chicken and all I drink is water. I've asked the cardiologist and my primary is there anything that I can do that I'm not doing I seem to need some help in this area and they just keep telling me it just takes time you'll be fine. If there are any suggestions out there that anyone can give me I would greatly appreciate it I'm sending all my love to everyone who's had their surgery around the same time I did and, and before also that are going in I will be praying for all of you. Thanks for listening and God bless you.