Three weeks out

Recovery in the slow lane

The first week home was great.  My own bed!  My own clothes!  My own food!  There was a kind of euphoric afterglow from the surgery.  I had a cold beer and it was glorious.  I had come through fine, as far as I knew, with flying colours.  My incisions were healing very well.  My chest hurt a bit when I coughed but extra-strength Tylenol was keeping it under control.  I was outside for walks in the wonderful sunshine.  I felt pretty strong and like the repair had made a difference. I was fixed and better than ever!

The second week was more of a downer.  I'm not entirely sure why.  Maybe the adrenaline from the first week dropped off.  Maybe the residual effects from the hospital medications wore off.  Maybe my repaired heart started to adjust to not pumping so often and so hard.  Whatever the reason, I felt blue.  I had less energy.  I had long naps both in the morning and in the afternoon.  Getting motivated to go for a walk was hard.  My healing sternum hurt when I moved, when I coughed, and when I took a deep breath.  I didn't seem to be recovering fast enough.  I wasn't as vigorous as I expected, I guess.  Maybe the beta-blocker medication was slowing me down too much.

A friend who'd recently been in for surgery to correct a blocked artery with a stent reported a similar sort of high followed by a low.  After his procedure he said he'd felt full of energy and vigour.  But by the second week he was feeling discouraged and down at the slow pace of his recovery.  He said it took a few weeks to get through his 'blue' period.

Now, three weeks after, I feel on more of an even keel.  It is taking a while for the sternum to heal but I'm resigned to that.  My blood pressure and heart rate are quite a bit lower than before the surgery.  I'm settling into a slower pace of life.  Someone reminded me that open heart surgery is pretty traumatic for the body and perhaps I shouldn't be surprised at the slow pace of recovery given the violence of what I've been through.  That makes sense.  I also think that some of my medication doses need to be adjusted.  I see my G.P. next week.