Sunday, September 25, 2016

Dougs surgery is over, it's time to get strong again

It's been a busy month.  Doug had his heart surgery on the 12th.   He had the Wolf Mini Maze procedure.  Here is a link http://wolfminimaze.com/wolf-mini-maze/ to a video of the actual procedure.  It really is a cool procedure.  Doug came out looking like he had been in a knife fight and lost.  LOL
This is left side.  I don't know what the two small holes on the top were but the longest cut was where he did some of the work.  The smaller one was more laparoscopic tools I guess.  The bottom round one was a drain tube.  He had a wire under the skin to his heart for an external pacemaker that was removed around day 4.

This is the right side.  This is where most of the work was done.  Doug's heart and lung was adhered together.  The doctor had to separate them before he could start his surgery.  He still has sutures on the drain tube holes.  All other incisions were glued back together.
He was in ICU four days.  They let me stay with him.  He had so many tubes coming out of him it took 30 min. for them to gather everything, just for him to get into a chair next to the bed.  Don't you love the yellow socks and the compression wraps on his legs?  LOL  At one time he had 9 Iv bags running at the same time.  He had a port, two iv's in his arms and a arterial iv that also took his blood pressure.
He is doing well but still weak. His heart rate is running in the 90's now.  This is still high but much lower than what it was before surgery.  The doctor said it could take up to 3 months for his heart to settle in to its new rhythm.
I forgot to show you the hospital room he was in before surgery and after he got out of ICU.

The nurses told us that Dr. Wolf puts all of his patients in these rooms because they come from all over the country.  They come with family and he wants them to have room to stay in the room also.  This was a very nice room.  We could live here!
Doug has an internal piece of hardware that I don't know what it's called but it monitors his heart and when and if it goes into afib it records it and when he goes to bed at night it sends that information to Dr. Wolf.  Cool huh.  He sees Dr. Wolf tomorrow for his two week check up.  I guess we will find out then what it sent.  Is that cool or what!  I wonder if I can use his built in wifi?  LOL
We have been staying at son, Michaels house since getting out of the hospital.  Most of the time they have been gone on business trips.  We have been house and dog sitting.  They will be back tomorrow so we will head back to the motorhome.  Everyone thought it would be easier if he didn't have to climb the steps into the motorhome.  It was a good idea.  It took more out of him than he and I both thought.
 I got him to walk on the treadmill in the clubhouse today.  He didn't last very long.  Maybe 5 min. but that was 5 min.  He will do better tomorrow.
Later

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