The bypass experience impacts on the whole family (as well as the patient) and often the family doesn't understand the problems or side effects of bypass surgery. Lynne has written down her thoughts on what would have been useful to know. After discussions with other people in similar experiences - it appears that these are common issues with all heart bypass patients.

Short term memory lapses: Rob often asked what I would be doing or where I was going, and within 3 minutes would ask again, and again. Perhaps a note book or white board by the phone would be helpful. He also often forgot where he put things. This did not help his frustrations!

Pains: I slept lightly, afraid to move least I hurt his wounds. His leg caused the most problems. This was the sorest part of the operation. Odd things like re-growing chest hair along side the wound caused unexpected pains.

Changes in sleeping patterns: Rob had a maximum of 3 or 4 hours sleep time.

Coughs: After the op Rob had a nasty deep cough (I worried about the flu) and the coughing hurt (Eddie split the stitches in his chest while coughing, got blood every where!).

Healing wounds: Scars, were hard and tight, I was afraid to touch them because they hurt him. The chiropractor vigorously massaged them and broke up the lesions.

Mood swings: Usually he was good but sometimes the smallest or most trivial thing could change him and within a minute he could be down in the dumps. The most trivial thing could cause this, as simple as not being able to find his glasses.

Remember, the heart is like a finely tuned car and when you have this operation the tuning goes out of kilter and will take some time to retune itself. The patient is the best judge of how to pace himself and how far he can push his body to recover. Don't judge your recovery by others!

Below you'll find links to download the full story of Rob's heart by-pass experience in both Word and PDF format.

Please Note: This story is the copyright property of Rob Marshall and is to be used for personal use only. Under no circumstances may anyone replicate or use any part of this document or information supplied here for commercial purposes or distribution.

Download Word Document Full Story Version.

Dowload PDF Full Story Version.

Download Free Acrobat Reader to view PDF version.

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