Hi, 1st post.
As I travel home from London St Thomas's I reach out to anyone with advice as to how to best support and help my mum.
We are four days into double heart bypass surgery and the sadness and anxiety about what lay ahead as well and truly kicked in (along with the AF)!!!
I rack my brain thinking what would I want and need from my loved ones if I was in HDU missing life, missing myself??
Hospitals usually give bypass patients a booklet when they're being discharged to advise on taking care of yourself once you get home. Most hospitals use a similar format for this booklet, here are a couple of examples,
ouh.nhs.uk/patient-guide/le...
lhch.nhs.uk/media/1099/card...
It would be useful for you to read these through in advance so you know what to expect.
About six to eight weeks after your mum gets home she'll be invited to attend a six session programme of Cardio Rehab. This is organised by the hospital not the GP. Cardio Rehab is an incredibly useful programme, equipping the patient with essential information about medication and life style. Only about half the people who qualify for Cardio Rehab actually bother attending, which is a terrible shame because the hard truth is that bypass surgery doesn't actually "fix" us, we still have heart disease and we're relying on medication and life style changes to slow down the pace of heart disease.
Almost immediately your mum gets home she'll need to begin with breathing and walking exercises. These are critical to repair her lungs. Our lungs collapse during open heart surgery and stay collapsed for the six or so hours duration of the operation. Re-inflating all the tiny pockets of micro collapse is a big job that will take weeks or even months, but it's absolutely critical and will largely determine how your mum feels her recovery is progressing. I'll be honest, doing five or so rounds of deep breathing/coughing exercises each day, and going our for a daily walk, are often the last thing you feel like doing, they're uncomfortable bordering on painful, but we need to dig deep and get them completed.
Here's some useful information on the deep breathing exercises,
kentcht.nhs.uk/cardiac-reha...
acprc.org.uk/Data/Publicati...
The recovery period isn't always a walk in the park, but personally I think bypass surgery was the best thing that ever happened to me. I now feel ten or even twenty years younger, I sleep like a baby and wake up fizzing with energy and a renewed zest for life. My wife and I are now extremely active, swimming and exercising together, travelling the world, and we're usually the first couple onto the dance floor and the last to leave!
Good luck!
Thank you. From the bottom if my "heart". Jo.
Amazing and useful in so many ways - thank you!
I don't now the age or fitness of your mum. I was 70 when I had a quadruple heart bypass exactly this time last year. Chappy Chap has given you excellent advice.
Your mum will need a lot of support for a few weeks and will likely feel some pain and will be restless and emotional. They will try to do too much and will likely have good days and bad days but the improvement should be clearly seen over a few weeks, but not every day
I would say it took me 8 to 10 weeks before I started to feel remotely normal and at 8 weeks stopped taking maximum doses of paracetemol and have not taken any since.
She will need ready access to books, a tablet, radio, tv or whatever to while away the time and will likely snooze a lot. Her night time sleeping habits may be disrupted . Access to a Variety of easy chairs is helpful as what will be comfortable first thing may be less so later in the day. go for short walks as per the booklet you will be given but don't let her overdo it.
I don't know what caused the HA but presumasbly some lifestyle changes may be in order whether that is getting more exercise (eventually) or a better diet.
You've had plenty of great advice. Just wanted to echo a comment from devonian186 above about sleep patterns. I had a triple bypass in 2020 and I now feel great and sleep well. But straight out of hospital, sleep was difficult. It's hard to get comfortable and I tended to lie awake listening to my heart beating! (I guess I needed reassurance that it was working!). So I learnt to grab sleep when I could and whenever I felt tired. Day or night. The idea of being asleep at night and awake during the day just didn't work for me. Sometimes I slept in bed, sometimes in a chair downstairs, so blankets near the chair were useful. Cups of tea at 2am were commonplace. An hour's sleep after lunch was normal. In the end normal sleep patterns gradually resumed.
If you have read the discharge documents from the hospital you probably already have a good understanding of what they think she needs to do for the best recovery?
When my mother had a heart operation she was naturally scared about doing further damage to her heart and so didn't do the gentle build up with the cardiac rehabilitation program. If I had been more aware of the program the hospital expected her to follow I would have been better able to help her with her natural anxiety and supporting her through her rehabilitation.
Going out with her for the short walks she was recommended would have been a great way to start.
Hi my transplant was done during lockdown and as I live alone I just took things easy, I got a chair for the shower and I had a walking stick to get up and down the stairs. Then I started walking to the corner of the street and back, I then walked a bit further each day. My son came over once a week to hoover and change the bed. My rehab was done by video which was ok but I wished I could have went to the hospital and done it there , it would have been nice to meet other patients. Wishing your mum a speedy recovery, char
hi JoSmith145 so pleased you have posted keep talking my lovely
I was one of those patients HA out the blue couldn’t fit stents so emergency bypass the same day, my recovery was a long one or so I thought 18 months All in all, I embraced the cardio rehab 12 week course I was offered, I spoke to the nurses and the consultant and my doctor regularly,and knew I wasn’t dealing with things well, i was put into HF and that did not sit well I didn’t understand so started seeing HF nurse, I also seen a psychologist over about 10 months, best thing I ever done
I have had more tests done recently and my results were good and the cardiologist is really pleased with my progress so much so he has taken me out of HF and told me to enjoy life, if anything changes he is happy to see me again.
Just watch out for little signs and if your mum needs extra help with understanding what has gone on here speak with someone I couldn’t string a sentence without breaking down!
Just be there for your mum and listen to her really listen you will know when she needs extra help, we all deal with this differently I wish your mum a speedy recovery. X
Ohhhhhh bless you JoSmith. Giving you a big virtual hug. I can only think back 9 years when my daughter must have been doing and feeling the same as you on her way home from St Thomas’s on day 4 of my triple by pass. You have been given lots and lots of very good advice already. All is given by people who’ve either gone through this op themselves or has had a loved one. Mum will feel weak, now and again possibly a little teary and will need to go to bed and sleep in the afternoons for a few weeks. But after about a month she will start to look ahead and feel better. You just need to help her practically with having a shower or washing as she can’t get wounds wet for a couple of weeks and don’t let her lift anything or do any heavy housework. Like hoovering or making beds. Believe me by the time she has her 6 week check up she will be feeling so different and well and be realising how poorly she felt before. Encourage her to exercise and you will have done everything a beautiful loving daughter can do and then you can let her be herself again and be proud of yourself. Good luck to you and your mum. She will now have many years of good health now for you and her to look forward to.
Hi JoSmith
I think the main “thing” you can do is to be there to support in whatever way you can. Some things I found helpful when my fiancé had his bypass:
A chart of all his medications, that we crossed off as he took them - he had a huge amount of pills that all had to be taken at different intervals etc - the chart really helped in the early days when we were both tired.
Lots of spare towels - he used them rolled up to hold against his incision when coughing etc. (The hospital actually recommended this.) Towels were great as as soon as one fell on the floor (which happened several times a day!) it could be thrown in the washing.
A very thick skin for quite a while - we had days where he was very understandably frustrated/angry/in pain and he had a lot of mood swings - at times he was quite nasty and I just had to brush it off (he’s not normally like this.)
Please remember to look after yourself too.
Some really excellent advice from others above. I was a 47 yo single dad when I had a CABG×4, 16.5 years ago. The kids were 14, 16 and 18.The booklets that others allude to were invaluable, as were cardiac rehab classes. I returned to work after 2-3 months.
The experience completely changed my outlook on life. For exmple I can't now be bothered with people that make life difficult. I've also done a lot more travelling as you never know when your number will be up
At the time of the illness (unstable angina) and op, knowing that I had the support of family and friends was the most important thing. A lot of people helped me and I will be forever grateful to those people.
I hope your mum gets well soon. These ops - although scary - usually do radically improve quality-of-life. Try to stay optimistic is my advice.
I'm in a similar boat - my 83 yr old dad had double bypass and stent surgery 4 days ago but has been struck with a tummy bug which has halted the good progress he made in the first 24 hours. Also complicated by him having been taken ill whilst on holiday so he's in a hospital virtually 100 miles from home, which he's anxious about. My mum (also 83) is struggling emotionally with the ongoing risk factors - troubling times.... Sending positive and sympathetic vibes.
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