Some News

I thought I'd let the forum members know that on September 25th of this year, I had heart bypass surgery. The procedure went well and I'm now in recovery. The latter feels like it's taking forever, since I have certain limitations on what I can do physically. For example, no lifting anything over ten pounds, no using my arms for pulling or pushing, no heavy exertion, and so on. I also have to sleep on my back, which is annoying since I have always slept on my side. I do some light excercises designed to keep excessive scar tissue from forming on my chest twice a day and I use a device called an incentive spirometer every four hours to rebuild my lung capacity and also to help prevent pneumonia.

I did suffer a setback when I first came home from the hospital: I was hit with an onset of what they call atrial fibrillation, a rapid, irregular heartbeat. The EMTs couldn't keep track of either my pulse or my blood pressure, as they were all over the place. In the emergency room, I was told that my heart rate was over 200. This was the first time in my life when I seriously thought I was going to die. Turns out that this condition happens about one third of the time when people have bypass surgery, but nobody bothered to warn me about it (they said that they didn't want to worry me...). I personally would have liked to have known that this could happen, because this was the most scared I have ever been in my life. It took them the better part of four days to get my heart rate back down and stabilized, but I'm doing fine now.

My chest looks like someone took a saber to it, as does my left forearm, but both are healing nicely. I will be out of work until late December, but I am drawing my disability insurance. It pays 40% of my weekly pay, which is a whole lot better than getting nothing at all. My wife is still working, so that makes the big difference. We have also gotten a lot of help from our church in the form of groceries, gift cards, and money; God has been watching out for us and blessing us richly. And I am told that once I complete my recovery, I'll feel like a new man. My eating habits have changed drastically, and I've lost twenty pound so far. I believe that I'll lose a lot more weight once I get to the point where I can get some serious excercise. And that's all I have for right now.

 

Corp.

That explains why we've not heard from you for a while.

Get well soon.

Good to hear you have some excellent sounding support from friends, family & Christian brothers.

Love & best wishes from David.

 

Best wishes, John/Jack

My family has a history of heart problems. Physically, I would not want a heart problem out of all the illnesses out there.

 

also best wishes and a speedy and good recovery.

 

hope you recover quickly

Of course now you have some spare time you could take up a sedentry hobby like.....................

Model building!

FNG

 

Woah.....seems a lot of people are having heart stuff done these days, bunch of people at church either have something coming up or just had stuff done this past week....

Best of luck, mate

 

my best wishes for you and your family, and keep the good spirits up, ayup and away!!!!!!!!

 

No lifting over ten pounds? Whoa. I hope you get well soon.

 

corp;

We'll be praying for ya!

 

It's great to hear you are doing well.

 

Good to hear that you're on the mend. All the best.

 

Thanks for the prayers and good wishes, guys; it means a lot to me that I have people like y'all in my corner. That's a real blessing.

I wish that the surgery hadn't been necessary, but since it was, I'll just have to make the best of it. The no lifting more than ten pounds rule will be in effect until late December, as will the ban on using my arms for pushing or pulling. The reason for this is simple: my breastbone was wired back together after the operation and the arm use restrictions are needed to ensure that it heals properly.

 

corp:
Glad to hear you're doing much better... sorry to hear you had to go under the knife.
Best wishes for a speedy recovery.

Tim

 

Good stuff corpcasselbury, nice to hear you're OK

 

Best wishes corpcasselbury. I wish you a speedy recovery.

 

Sorry to hear that you've had to go through this, but I'm glad to hear that everything - all things considered - are going fine. Be sure to relax plenty; from friends' and family's experience, when the doctor sets a time limit, stick to it.

Look on the bright side - now, you'll have plenty of time for building plastic models and reading

 

Hey Corp, I'm just glad to hear that you're recovering well.

God Bless,
Ricky

 

Thanks again, guys. I have every intention of doing what my doctor tells me to do. I have to keep throttling down my impatience, but I do not want to set my recovery back. Fortunately, I'm getting a lot of support, which really helps.

 

Best of luck Corp!!
Glad to hear you're getting better!

 

Sorry to hear about your medical condition, corpcasselbury, but good to hear that you are recovering well. Best of luck from me as well!