Comments | ftm: Steps/Experience

jacobreid in ftm

Steps/Experience

Apr 30, 2012 16:50

This is a really short kinda recap of how things occured at my chest surgery. I kinda wanted to find somethig like this beforehand but couldn't find anything. I probably wasn't looking hard enough. In any case, Dr. McLean and all his staff are fantastic. Anyways, if anyone has any questions I'll do my best to answer them.

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via ljapp, surgeons-mclean, surgery-top surgery

Comments 10

(The comment has been removed)

jacobreid April 30 2012, 23:43:12 UTC

Thanks! I'll try to post what happens at the post op appointments I have too.

maadammann May 1 2012, 13:30:21 UTC

I'm having surgery in 7 weeks(!) and this was exactly the kind of info I've been wondering about/looking for. Especially as someone who has never had any kind of surgery.
Thanks!

jacobreid May 1 2012, 16:07:07 UTC

No problem!

jersey13 May 1 2012, 18:07:49 UTC

Thought I might add a few thoughts about my own experience here, since the OP's experience seems to be helpful to those who are expecting surgery ( ... )

jersey13 May 1 2012, 18:07:58 UTC

They wheeled me into the OR, and once there, they asked me to scoot over to the other bed, and I complied. I remember hearing and seeing them prepping their instruments, and I felt mostly ignored until they hooked another line into my IV... and then there was nothing. The next thing I know, I'm laying quietly with my eyes closed, and my eyelids are too heavy to open. I'm swathed in warm blankets, and I can hear some of the nurses chatting with each other. After a couple of minutes, I hear one of them say my name and speak to me. She's asking me if I'm comfortable, and I have just enough energy to respond. I am feeling a really heavy, throbbing, and tingling pain in my chest, so I manage to slur out a response, telling her my chest is really starting to hurt. She asks me to roll over onto my side, if I can, and I manage it. She tells me I'm going to feel a little pinch while she injects me with some Demerol for the pain, which should last me a few hours until I go home and can take some pain pills. And then she says she's sorry, but ( ... )

jacobreid May 1 2012, 21:10:58 UTC

That was pretty helpful too! I think everyone goes through a somewhat different experienced based on the doctor to see and their anxieties. I never had any surgical experiences before my chest surgery so this was a new experience for me all together. I didn't have very much anxiety during any of this. I'm a fairly relaxed person for the most part.

As this is day 2 for recovery I can definitely concur with the numbness. I can see bruising around my armpit areas and really can't feel much around my chest.

I took a walk to grab a coffee today to see how mobile I was. My shoulders are tensed and my back seems to be slight hunched. I'm assuming this is just my body's way of trying to stay comfortable.

Aside from this I don't have much to add. Thanks for sharing your experience! Hopefully it will clear up any questions about the operation itself for others.

jacobreid May 1 2012, 21:12:17 UTC

Er... Excuse any typos/spelling errors. I'm doing this from my iphone with a sleepy cat on me.

sirquetzal May 1 2012, 23:32:26 UTC

May as well add my experiences here for convenience's sake. I had surgery roughly a week ago with Dr. Silverman in Ottawa ( ... )

jacobreid May 2 2012, 00:17:37 UTC

It seems a lot of surgeons do their work in hospital ORs. Dr.McLean had an OR at the office in Mississauga.

sirquetzal May 2 2012, 19:19:36 UTC

Dr. Silverman's practice seems pretty small (just him) and Ottawa doesn't have very much of a private medical industry as far as I can tell. I did find it interesting that the hospital was 45 minutes out of the city but it makes sense as the (public) operating wait times in the city are pretty high.