Post-op: Appointments and Balancing Meds with New Lifestyle

Since last Friday, when I was released from hospital, it's been a very careful balancing act between trying to get used to my new body, my new (temporary)  meds, my new (somewhat) diet, and joggling more doctor's appointments in a day than ever before. 

After the release from hospital, there is a mandatory followup appointment with the surgeon's office, where they inspect your incisions and make sure you're progressing as expected (breathing-wise, no infection, drainage tube, etc), then another appointment with your cardiologist, where you get on a new schedule of appointments with him (mine were every 3 months before surgery, it is every 2 weeks now), as well as new appointments for the lab (weekly) where they must check your INR. Your INR is the number that shows how much your blood clots. With an artificial valve in your heart, that number needs to be higher than the normal person (normal person is around 1, mine needs to be between 1.5-2.5, even according to others, even 2-3), so the blood will clot less.

So, that's pretty much been the spend of my days since Friday. 

My drainage tube is still attached to my right lung. My rib cage hurts so insanely strong I cannot breathe correctly, so I have not been doing my breathing exercises quite as expected. They added some muscle relaxers to my cocktail of meds today, along with my percocet for pain, so hopefully going forward I'll see some relief. 

I still have numbness in my left leg and arm from the surgery, as well as soreness in my chest, from my sternum incision - which is all normal. 

I am really grateful that I am eating just fine (although smaller portions, sometimes), and I am sleeping in my own bed (albeit reclined pretty steeply) and  for the most part my mind is clear. 

An interesting find during all my appointments is that every doctor, nurse, medical staff is asking me whether I am depressed because I am now going to be on "so much medicine" for the rest of my life. I kind of chuckle, because the only thing that they added to my drugs after this surgery is the coumadin (the anticoagulant) for my artificial aortic valve. The beta blocker, the statin, the zetia, the daily aspirin have been my daily mainstays for at least 18 years now, because of my FH.

Thank goodness for some sense of normalcy, you know. Nothing else seems or feels normal everywhere else in my body right now.