Post Surgery (updated)

Done. The surgery only took about an hour and a half. I think I went into the OR at 9:40 am and woke up by 11:45 am. We were late going into the OR because the surgeon decided last minute to put the fistula into my right arm. He said my veins were kinda small in my left arm and he couldn’t be sure that the fistula would work. The right arm had much better veins.

Dammit.

It seems that once the needles go into the fistula, you can’t really move your arm that much. With my right arm immobilized, I’m not going to be able to do much during dialysis. It already sucks having to sit for four hours, but at least I could do stuff. Now it’s going to be much harder to sit and do nothing.

The peritoneal dialysis catheter is out too. I’m supposed to change the dressing after 24 hours. Now I have to slowly get rid of all my remaining PD supplies: solutions, tubing, cleaning solution, etc. I also have to figure out how to put my temporary crowns back in before trying to eat.

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Another issue, hopefully temporary, with having the fistula on the right arm is side sleeping. It still hurts for me to sleep on my left side, and now I can’t sleep on the right side so I’m stuck sleeping on my back. That’s tolerable with my adjustable bed but on normal flat mattresses, my back and chest still hurts when lying down.

I’m not sure what I could have done. Ask the surgeon to force the fistula into my left arm? Telling him to forget the fistula and use the chest catheter a bit longer? Sigh…

Surgery Prep

Less than 11 hours until surgery tomorrow. Even though these two surgeries are fairly minor, I’m more anxious than I was before my heart bypass surgery. I guess those happened quickly so I didn’t have time to dwell, while I’ve had weeks to think about getting a fistula.

During the pre-surgery call last week, the hospital went through all my medications and gave instructions for each one. Some I can take but others I need to skip. I stopped taking Aspirin and Eliquis about a week ago. I was supposed to stop taking vitamins too but I forgot and only stopped tonight. Finally, I’m supposed to skip one of the blood pressure medicines but not the other ones, and skip the blood sugar medication.

They also told me to shower using anti-bacterial soap. Since I can’t take showers with the chest catheter, I’m going to try and clean up a bit with soap and a towel. Don’t want to stink up the OR tomorrow.

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I only slept for 2.5 hours. It’s now 5:15 am and I’ve been up for over three hours. I tried going back to sleep but I’m anxious about the upcoming surgery. I still need to get up in an hour to wash up.

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I give up. Between surgery anxiety and the numbness in my feet, there’s no way I’m getting any more sleep this morning. Also my chest is starting to hurt when I lay flat on my back. I’m going to be under general anesthesia for the surgeries but it’s gonna suck when I wake up with a couple incisions and a sore chest.

Lingering Chest Pains

It’s been eleven weeks since the heart bypass surgery and I’m preparing to go back to work next week. Overall, recovery has gone well since I’m able to walk, drive, and do most stuff on my own. I also have more energy compared to when I was on peritoneal dialysis. However, I’m still nowhere near 100% recovered yet. I tire pretty quickly when walking or exercising, and there is lingering pain in my chest, especially when sleeping.

I can sleep okay on my back, now that I can raise the head of the bed slightly. Before surgery, I was more of a side sleeper, and right now I can sleep on my right side, though I have to flatten out the bed to do so. Sleeping on the left still causes a lot of pain when I breath. I have to be careful when I try to find a comfortable sleeping position that I don’t accidentally turn to the left. The surgery incision appears to be down the center of my chest so I don’t know why sleeping on the left side hurts while the right side is fine.

Keloid

So after being dormant for about 10 weeks, there is something happening to my heart bypass surgery chest scar. Before, there was just a faint pink line running down my chest. If you look closely, there is a slight channel where the cut was. It seems like during the past few days, there is now flesh growing along the scar so the pink line is slightly raised.

I think the term for this is keloid. From Wikipedia:

Keloid, also known as keloid disorder and keloidal scar, is the formation of a type of scar which, depending on its maturity, is composed mainly of either type III (early) or type I (late) collagen. It is a result of an overgrowth of granulation tissue (collagen type 3) at the site of a healed skin injury which is then slowly replaced by collagen type 1. Keloids are firm, rubbery lesions or shiny, fibrous nodules, and can vary from pink to the color of the person’s skin or red to dark brown in color.

Although my keloid looks nothing like the photo in Wikipedia, I think I’m starting to experience some pain along the site. Previously, the pain has been deeper in the chest cavity. Now there is some pain on the surface and seemingly along the scar. My cousin, who had her surgery two years ago, said that she still feels some pain, and the skin around the scar sometimes feel numb. Two years! That’s some crazy long recovery time. That’s why I think going back to work in a couple of weeks is fine. Recovery improvements from here on out will be very slow so waiting a few more weeks won’t make a difference.

Genetic Disposition (updated)

My mom just got home from the hospital after spending the night. She went in for surgery yesterday. We thought she was getting a carotid stent for a blocked artery. It turned out it was a carotid endarterectomy instead.

The procedure is similar to my heart bypass surgery that it removes plaque from arteries, just in a different location. Now I’m worried that I have more blocked arteries in other locations since the heart bypass surgery only cleaned up arteries in the heart.

Most of my issues are from lifestyle choice in food and exercise (or lack thereof). However, likely some of it is genetic. I’m more like my mom’s side of the family rather than my dad’s. For example, a lot of relatives on my mom’s side are diabetic as well, and there are a few heart bypass surgeries too. Sometimes I wish I had better genes, like people that can eat whatever and still are healthy and look good with minimal exercise.

I think my mom’s surgery went well and there doesn’t seem to be any complications, especially signs of stroke. Unfortunately, I am also going in for surgery next week so both of us will be recovering. My dad may be real busy for a few weeks taking care of both of us.

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My dad showed me the insurance statement from Blue Shield. My parents have a Medicare Advantage plan through Blue Shield. I though Medicare only paid up to 80% of medical costs but it looks like insurance paid 100% of my mom’s surgery, which came out to be ~$31,000, including one night at the hospital. I’m must surprised how fast the claim was processed. I’m still seeing claims from my ER visit and surgery from three months ago. Maybe that’s the difference between HMO and PPO claims.