After the diagnosis from my surgeon doctor to have the surgery to remove the excess fluid around the heart, I needed to have my “blood thinning reversed” before the operation. An intravenous fluid with vitamin K was injected into my blood stream… to make the blood thicken enough, before the operation.
My INR test (blood thinning test) that day had indicated too high a rating of 5.0, but for my case, it should be between 2.5 and 3.5, anything higher or lower is a problem. The lower number meaning it’s too thick which could cause my mechanical valve to clog up and fail, and too high a number could be dangerous for some internal bleeding, or excessive bruising, or whatever.
So, once the situation was okay for me to be sent to the operating room, the ER nurse and orderly prepared to take me to the operating room. I was transported on the hospital bed still connected to various tubes, oxygen, intravenous fluids, and brought to the “pre-op” room, where there are several beds, nursing staff and technicians. All the necessary cleaning and bandage dressings are checked, and all tubing connections checked. There was some ongoing chit-chat of the staff talking about the Canadiens hockey game, which caught my attention while I was lying down just waiting for the roll out the operating room.
Well, soon enough it was time to be moved, so off we went to the operation room area. The corridors leading to the operating rooms are well air-conditioned and with some good air filtration, you can sense it as you pass through the area.
I was brought to the main entrance of large glass doors that have automatic rolling to slide the doors open when entering the large corridors that head towards the various operating rooms. At the main entrance, I had to wait for some details to be sorted out with the staff, some OR staff and surgeons were talking over a matter of concern, and then I was asked to sign a special “release” paper that basically states that I understand the risk of an operation, and that I am giving them permission to operate on me.
Another person from the OR staff came to speak with me, and he asked if I was feeling
any pain, and I said that I had some pain from the anaesthetic they gave me during last operation, which he quickly retorted… “the anaesthetic doesn’t cause any pain”… perhaps he didn’t realize that it’s the muscle relaxant that could cause the pain afterwards?… well what do I know?… I’m just the one who had to deal with all that post-op pain!
Anyway, soon I was off to the operating table!… and as I was wheeled into the room, it was
a different room than the one I had the major surgery. The room looked a bit like a work shop?… The walls are made of standard construction block, painted a medium green color and all kinds of equipment and OR staff moving about the room. The OR table looked really small I thought… it wasn’t as nice or warm as the one I was on during the open heart surgery.
The staff helped me get on the small table, but there was a problem with the head rest
being way too low, I could not put my head that low with my back much higher, so they quickly adjusted the head rest, and it was better for me.
The surgeon doctor was soon at my side and talking to me, and actually was saying silly things that was making me laugh, he had quite the sense of humour. The surgeon is a man I saw on a few occasions, he is Hawaiian and his demeanour was comforting in the way he spoke with people, you can usually tell when someone is a “people person”. This helped ease the stress I was feeling.
The anaesthetic was soon applied, and off I was to dreamland again… just remember waking up in the post-op room, there were more tubes inserted, a large one down my throat, and the large tube connected on my belly area (same spot as the previous operation). My hands had to be secured down at my side, as I couldn’t stand the tube in my throat, I would get panicky and try to remove the tube… I hated having that tube down my throat… it was painful and felt like my throat was opened twice its size!
The ICU staff continued to monitor my condition, and within an hour or so I was stabilized enough to be transported to the cardiac ward. I hadn’t been on the cardiac ward before, it is a new section in the hospital, not the same floor as the surgical ward.
There wasn’t any space in the ICU rooms (over-crowded), so I was transported to the cardiac ward (medical 5) and was then put on a really comfortable hospital bed!… it was the most comfortable bed I’ve ever been on, I guess it made up for some of the discomfort of having all kinds of tubes hooked up to me. The room was very nicely decorated and arranged in this cardiac ward, it had a large window with a nice view of some trees and landscape. The room also had some individual air and heat control, so the room could be properly adjusted, as needed (contrary to the surgical ward, where the whole floor has one temperature, much too warm!).
As I had this large tube down my throat it was totally impossible to speak… so it was like charades to communicate with the nurse and my wife. I was getting hot with all the covers on me, and since I couldn’t move much I needed help just to remove some of the covers etc.
Soon there were some cardiologist doctors that came to see me, and once again this “whisky cowboy doctor” showed up, with a bunch of other cardiologists. Then the whisky cowboy doctor approached me and said something rather peculiar “I know what you’re thinking” … “that your condition of heart fluid build-up will happen again”… “but this is a very rare condition, and it should not happen again”. But all I was thinking, “no that’s not what I was thinking at all!… I just wanted to have that damn tube removed from my throat!
He then just walked away after that little revelation!… that was the last time I saw him. Then another cardiologist said something really more significant, as he told me that my lungs had some edema (swelling) and that I needed to keep that “special tube” in my throat for a while (turned out I needed to keep it in my throat the whole night!)… to give my lungs a chance to heal. Well, I was in for a rather restless night… and I remember telling myself not to panic and try to relax… and just try to get used to have a large tube down my throat… it was really difficult for sure!
During the night, I recall getting too hot with the covers on, and tried to signal the night duty nurse, but I couldn’t find the “special call button”… it had fallen out of reach, so I just started banging the side of the bed with my leg and kept hitting it to hopefully get the nurse to hear me. Finally she did, came in to see what was wrong… and of course I couldn’t talk, so I had to do some charades to show that I was getting hot, and needed the covers removed… as at first she thought I needed more!… so, it was annoying but amusing at the same time… finally she got it right, removed the excess covers and adjusted the temperature control in the room to be much cooler!… thank you!
The morning soon came, although I felt like I really didn’t sleep… a different nurse came in for the day shift. The nurse was young and quite a cute looking South American, but I’m not really sure, she had a slight Spanish accent. She found the room temperature too cold for her, so she put a special hospital bright yellow slip-over, the color against her dark skin was quite striking, but when she had her sleek rectangular black rimmed glasses on and her hair pulled back and tucked away, that made her totally look like a Ninja turtle!… I tried not to laugh or say anything… but I couldn’t speak anyway, at least not yet!
Well, there’s still some more story to tell… but will be on my next posting! Thanks for reading! 🙂
TM Journal 
Humour helps survive anything! 🙂