This is Part 9 of my notes about my recent open heart surgery. To read what has come before use these links: Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3 – Part 4 – Part 5 – Part 6 – Part 7 – Part 8
So finally after two weeks in the hospital I was discharged to go home. My new recovery spot was my easy chair in the front room. I was still in my hospital stocking feet, unable to put my shoes and braces on. So I did my hourly walking around the house. For the first couple of weeks I used the walker. Slowly I got back my strength a bit and managed to venture out without the walker, always careful to watch my step and avoid falling at all costs.
When I first got home I tried to sleep in my own bed again. It was a wonderful thought after all the tortuous nights in the uncomfortable hospital beds. But alas, my body wasn’t able to lay flat in my bed. I tried to sleep but was kept awake in pain, staring at the ceiling. And when I did get up I was in significant pain – mostly in my back.
Apparently when they do the open heart surgery I was laid out flat on a steel operating table for several hours. They spread open my rib cage during most of that time. After they put me back together I went to heal on a hospital bed for 10 days. My guess is that process let me heal in an unusual position with my head and knees propped up by the mechanical bed. Then when I tried to lay flat it pulled at everything that was healing and it hurt.
After a couple of nights of trying to force myself to sleep in the bed I got up around 2 am and went back out to my easy chair in the front room to just sit and get some rest. I was thoroughly frustrated at not being able to sleep. I got comfortable in the easy chair, and to my amazement, I quickly fell asleep. When I woke up I realized that the easy chair was a recliner (I’d never slept in a chair before) and it left my body folded slightly – like the hospital beds.
So the next night – and actually for the next 3 months or so, I slept in the easy chair at night. I was very relieved to be able to sleep, although frustrated it couldn’t be in my own bed. I must admit, however, that the cat loved it! I call her Fuzz Bucket. She’s a cat my wife rescued years ago. She has always been cordial with me. But this was something she could really get her paws and claws into. Once I settled in for the night in the easy chair, she would jump up in my lap and then stretch out on my chest on top of the warm fuzzy blanket, and make herself at home. I would position her away from where my incision had been so I was comfortable despite her loud purring. It became our new routine.
They had told me when this started I would be off from work for 3 months. That is the longest I’ve been off work since I began working when I was 13 years old. The first few weeks it seemed good to be able to just take it easy and recover. But after a few more weeks I began to get restless. I decided I was ready to go back to work. Little did I know that in addition to needing a doctor’s note to take off work for a long time, you also need a doctor’s note to go back to work. It turns out the short term disability insurance company wouldn’t let me go back until the doctor said I could. And that is when it became a little more interesting.
The insurance company told me to get a note from my primary care doc, since I had been in his care once I came home. So, leave a message and wait a day… and they said I needed to get the note from the surgeon who did the bypass. Leave a note and wait a day for a callback… and they said I needed the note from my Cardiologist since I had been released back to her care. It took over a week to get the note and send it to the insurance company. Finally they cleared me to go back to work. I had the surgery on Aug 10, 2023. I came back to work Oct 16, 2023.
Although I came back to work, the work of healing wasn’t done yet. I will write about cardiac rehabilitation in my next post. If I haven’t bored you to tears yet, stay tuned…