Downsides to Recovery

A few posts ago, I outlined some of the upsides to recovering from open heart surgery. While I've been able to appreciate this experience and see the good that has come from this, there are still challenging moments. Here are some of my biggest struggles.



The Downsides to Recovery: I'm not complaining, I'm just sayin'...

Randomly crying

98% of the time, I feel great. Every once in a while, I get in a weird funk and then everything in the world is sad. My room is sad. My couch is sad. My life is sad. Everything is sad. This happened the first day or two after I got home, and was mostly due to the pain I was in. I was tired, in pain, and frustrated. I walked into my room, started crying and played some emo music to complement my mood. Then I got over it. Nowadays, I don't have as many random bouts of tearfulness unless I'm super tired and haven't had a nap.

Pain - painkillers = uh oh 

So many pill bottles! All empty now. 

When I was on pain meds, everything was tolerable. Even if I was in a substantial amount of pain, I was too zonked out to notice what was going on. Once I ran out of the hard stuff (read: Vicodin and muscle relaxants), it was a little harder to ignore the pain I was in, but thankfully, I feel better and better each day. 

These days, my sternum doesn't hurt nearly as much as it did immediately after surgery. In fact, I usually don't notice it unless I try something stupid, like carrying in all the groceries at once or lifting my chunky dog. However, my neck and my shoulders have been bothering me since the first day post-surgery. For example, when I was in the hospital, they gave me morphine, Vicodin, Ibuprofen, and added a muscle relaxant for my neck and shoulder pain. After all the meds set in, I could barely feel my chest and my neck was still throbbing. Not fun. All is well, though! I have a cute little travel airline pillow to use in the car and on the couch, and a memory foam pillow for sleeping. If you are preparing for open heart surgery, I highly recommend buying at least a neck pillow to use for recovery in the hospital and at home.

Sleeping is hard
The first few nights were not fun. It was great to be home in my own room and in my own bed...until I realized that my bed was not a hospital bed (cue horror music).

Happy because she has a hospital bed. 

VS. 

Not the same experience as a hospital bed. 

I quickly realized that my bed did not have any up/down controls nor did it have a call light that I could press if I needed assistance. The first night back at home, I woke up at 3:00am in pain and unable to get myself out of bed. I'm not really the type of person to freak out about something like that. My first thought was actually, "well, this is awkward. I wonder how I'm going to get up." Thankfully, I only had to wonder for a few more minutes because my mom, with her motherly 6th sense, decided to wake up at 3:05am to check on me. SuperMother to the rescue. I slept on a recliner in the living room for the next few nights. Problem solved.

I still can't sleep normally-- I'm a side-sleeper and rolling over is still too uncomfortable for me. However, I know I have to be patient with myself and with my body as it heals.

Cold spells
When I got home from the hospital, I got hit with a weird cold spell. One minute I was fine, and the next minute, I was super cold, and my entire body was shaking. Not cutesy little shivers like one might normally experience when one is cold. I'm talking about full-body shivers, almost as if I were convulsing. It was really scary and horrible. I'm assuming this was my body trying (and failing) to thermoregulate itself. This only happened a few times, but it was no fun at all. My sister turned my heating pad on, put some blankets over me, and buried me in my bed. Once again, problem solved.

No driving for 6 weeks
The first few weeks sans driving was A-okay. For one, I was too stiff and in too much pain to even think about driving. Secondly, my wonderful boyfriend came to visit and drove me around for a week, so "Maya can't drive because she has a broken sternum" morphed into "Maya isn't driving because Steve is being a gentleman" (for the record, he's always a gentleman).

My gentleman and me at In-N-Out

Now that I feel better and have more energy, not being able to drive is a little bothersome. I get frustrated sometimes, so I have to remind myself that Once Upon a Time, I didn't have a driver's license or a car, and my life was totally fine.

Broken sternum

In order to operate on my heart, my surgeon had to saw through my breastbone (aka sternum) in a  procedure known as a sternotomy. After he repaired my heart, my sternum was wired back together. It sounds kind of dramatic, but really, a broken sternum heals just like any other broken bone-- it needs time to heal and grow.

Having a broken sternum places limits on your arm movements and how much you are allowed to lift. The general rule is no lifting anything over 10 lbs for the first 6 weeks post-surgery. If I were still at school right now, I would be at marching band practice with a 45-pound sousaphone wrapped around me. HA. HAHAHAHA. That's not happening anytime soon.

Me and my sousaphone (Fall 2011)

Unfortunately, my broken sternum eliminated my life-long dream of being a professional tuba-playing sensation (at least for the time being). More relevantly, it has affected some more common daily rituals. Here's a list of everyday things that take some strenuous arm/torso movements:

• Opening/closing: 
• doors
• car doors
• Windows
• Shower door
• Carrying my own plate: During weeks 1-3, I only had the strength to carry my plate without food on it. Unfortunately, imaginary food isn't nearly as delicious as real food. 
• Making my own bed, which is a problem for someone who cleans her room obsessively. 
• Getting up from:
• couch
• bed
• grass
• floor ... my sister walked into my room the other day and I was just laying on the floor. "What," I exclaimed. "It's comfortable down here! And besides, I can't get up". 

Energy is precious 
Healing your body from such an invasive procedure takes a lot of energy, and I'm slowly regaining my energy, day by day. I've outlined some major phases in my recovery:

Phase 1: Zombie Maya
The first day after surgery, I remember getting out of bed and sitting in my chair. That took so. much. energy. Then, with the help of my superstar nurse, I walked a distance of maybe 40 feet outside my hospital room. Keyword here is maybe. 

First time in the chair!

Phase 2: Sleepy Maya

The first few days after I got home, just showering was a huge event. I would be so wiped out after my shower that I would have to take a nap. One day, I took a shower and shaved my legs and washed my hair. Needless to say, my excitement (and my personal hygiene) was at an all-time high that day.

Phase 3: Welcome to the Big Leagues, Maya

Apparently I walked a mile the other day (which was a huge accomplishment IMHO). I was high on caffeine and elated by Notre Dame's victory that morning against Navy. I put my workout clothes on, laced up my Nikes and went for a walk. I was rockin' my walk and feeling so smug. I briefly considered jogging. I also briefly considered running, and/or just channeling Usain Bolt and breaking a world record in sprinting. These Olympic dreams quickly vanished about 6 minutes into my walk when I realized that I was kind of tired, and kind of lightheaded. So for the next 14 minutes, I tried not to look like I was wandering aimlessly throughout my neighborhood. I made it home, drank some water, and took a nap.

~ 

There you have it, friends. Some days are good, some days aren't so good. But every day is a blessing, and I welcome each and every day with open arms (but not too open, because then I'd hurt my sternum).

via.