Cassie's Posts

I was taken to the ER last night due to really bad chest pain and having pain that was stabbing and tender to the touch where my incision is. I was curious if anyone had this problem a month after surgery. The pain around my incision is severe but there doesn't look like there's any infection. It's more swollen than before and can't have any touch or pressure on it. Right now my vitals are stable my BP is a little high and my HR is in the low 100s which is unusual for being on a beta blocker. We are going to do a CT and the on call surgeon and cardio are being called. They are talking about taking me back up to cardio ICU. When I know more j will let you know. They're giving me dilaudid which doesn't seem to help much because of my tolerance to medicine and what they were giving me when I was admitted for my surgery. I can feel my incision just having shooting pain right now and it's unlike what I've been used to considering the pain was getting better last week. If anyone has any advice to what this could be or has experienced this please let me know. It would help with what to tell the doctors and give them ideas too they seem to be stumped as to why this is going on.

Wow. What an incredible last couple of weeks it has been. I never thought I would make it to this point and here I am. I remember reading posts on here where people talked about being on the other side of the surgery and i remember just thinking to myself "I can't imagine what that must be like to have that calm feeling being on the other side." I have to say, there is nothing that I could have done that could have prepared me for this and I wish that I would have pushed myself to prepare for the recovery. I walked into this recovery blind to how nasty and tough it would be on me. I was so afraid of my mortality and my young age with this surgery, that I wasn't prepared for life after surgery. Here i am two weeks later laying in bed, still in pain, still uncomfortable, yet relieved to have my stitches out. Thankfully I was only in the hospital once since the surgery for an infection and for a fever that was able to be taken care of promptly. I remember reading from other patients that they underwent cardiac depressions. I swore up and down that I wouldn't go through the cardiac depression. I just made it through a massive surgery that was to save my life, how could I be depressed? How could i feel so low and so alone? I have to admit that I have fallen into the cardiac depression that i swore I would not go into. I think there are many factors to why this has been such a hard time for me. My fiancé left me a week after the surgery, leaving me heart broken wondering how the "love of my life" could leave me during my recovery, dealing with the chronic pain and acute pain as well as my autoimmune diseases were a struggle as well. The surgery in it self is a lot to get through. My question to the community is how did you get through this tough time in your life. I know that this is not going to be a walk in the park, but I would like to make it better, I would like to be happier and I would like to start appreciating life the way I used to before the sickness and surgery took over. I appreciate all the help you all have been. Being 22 and having open heart surgery wasn't on my list of things to accomplish this semester, but it has made me incredibly strong and I am beyond grateful for all of you and this experience. I apologize for spelling and grammatical errors as I am very tired and still on a lot of medications. Thank you so much for everything Cass "