Day 4: Post-Op Update

I would like to preface this post...I think I only know the day we are on due to the blog at this point. I haven't left the hospital since Friday and things have really started to blur together...which elevator am I in and which floor do I need to go to...

Since Sam's roommate was discharged yesterday afternoon he was lucky enough to have the room to himself all night and finally get some sleep in his new room chair :) (thanks to his boisterous wife). He got about 4+ hours which is great!

The day started off with seeing Dr. Bolling and his touring squad. This was the first time Sam has seen him since discussing surgery a couple months ago. He is a man of few words but gets the details across. He said he needs to walk, walk, walk, walk and when he is tired of walking I need to get him to walk more. Basically Sam gets to determine if the surgery was a success or not by exercising his heart and that will get it to decrease in size. He told Sam what he had done and told him he would be getting his chest tubes taken out, heart wires removed and one of his IVs today. As you can imagine after he left it was a busy and tiring morning getting all of these removed.

His PA Aya came in first to remove his heart wires...I guess those were hiding under a large dressing on Sam's chest so I didn't really know about them. He described them coming out as "dental floss wrapped around my heart and fishing line pulled through my ribs". Needless to say it was painful and he had to be still for an hour afterwards.

Shortly after that hour they came back in to remove the chest tubes. There were two tubes that ran 12 inches inside of his chest cavity. I stayed in the room for this one to lend some breathing techniques and hand clenching. (Its crazy how scared I get for a flu shot and yet I have been able to watch every step of Sam's stuff without flinching). When they remove the chest tubes they need to hold pressure on the area so that oxygen doesn't get inside of Sam's lungs and cause an air pocket - this process requires 2 people. As they remove the suture around the tube they quickly tie the hole closed and then dress it with antibacterial ointment pads and gauze.

Sam asked to see the tubes they pulled out and quickly realized why he was in so much pain...

 This is the machine the tubes drained into and they had to track his drainage hourly/daily to ensure everything was on course.

He had a chest x-ray to ensure the lungs don't have fluid and all was clear. After a little rest and lunch he has done a lot of walking and spirometer use. We even did a 1/4 mile loop tonight :) He thinks today has been the worst in regards to pain as after everything was removed he now feels all of the movement that was done in his chest.

Here is to a better tomorrow :)