Pericarditis & Pericardiectomy Part IV

Cathy...I'm thinking of you.  I hope your surgery went well and I know everyone is waiting to hear from you!!

 

Much love and many hugs, Teri

Fran! It's great to hear from you here and I'm glad to know that you are on the mend!! ~ though that is a lot of fluid! I've heard where sometimes it is mistaken for TB. So I don't think you were alone with that initial thought. You take care and keep us posted on you as well!!

Hugs, Teri :)

Maya, My 1st surgery, in September, was a window through the sternum. The 2nd one was a partial pericardiectomy under my left breast. Is your boyfriend on any inflammatories? The fluid started coming back after I was off my meds in November and they operated again in April. So 5 months. I was on prednisone the whole time too. I have days where it is difficult to breath...like today...it stinks. I'm ok sitting still but as soon as I get up to move its hard. I also get terrible heartburn at times which I never had until all this happened. See what happens when you turn 40! You just have to take it 1 day at a time.

Thanks very much Mister. We will put in a call later today.

I'm so sorry you have to be back in the hospital to drain the fluid... if it is not in the lung, where is it? Darren (my BF) had to get the fluid drained out of the pericardium (500 ccs of fluid) and it was really OK... after all you've been through it will be fine. Its crazy, with this pericardium, it just does not want to let up! What is the deal?

You'll be in my thoughts and I thank you so much for the referral.

Sorry had to start again from here, was getting upset. This woman and apparently no one else didn't realize they had numbed my lower body instead of my upper body. My upper right thigh and lower back started to become extremly numb I cried hysterically all night long.I cried out for my family; my husband and the nurse kept telling me basically to shut up or she would make life really miserable for me.

The next morning I begged and begged for my tubes to be removed' and finally the next shift came and literally that evening was like laying on a bed of the sharpest needles. When the next shift showed up I told them that my right side of my body was becoming completly numb. They called pain management who agreed that the epiderma was hitting a nerve that was causing my lower extremities to gain complete numbness and come to find out i had no pain control; 0 pain control at 4 of my insisions sights so basically i spent the entire evening and till morning with no pain medication until the pain managment team was called when they found out my right leg was numb. Well i have to finish the rest of this tomorrow, I am exhausted and i have to go to bed, cya then
Cathy

I'm just soooo very excited that you made it through, Cathy!! WooHoo!! :) Just had to kick my heels one more time!!!

(((((Cathy)))))

Halleluya!!!!!!!

Cathy...I'm so sorry for your pain but it is SO GREAT to hear you complaining about it!!!!!!!! Congratulations! I'm so thankful you are through surgery and with it enough to be ticked off! I have been thinking of you all week so I was very excited to see your post! Thank you! Impressive to be emailing on day 3...you are my hero!

I had a nurse from hell too...I barely remember but my family tells me that I was very clear that she was not allowed back in my room to take care of me :) I hope by now you have some good pain control...that is the least they could do!

I'm so glad you are on this side of it all now! Every day will get a little better...you won't believe it! One day at a time and take it easy! Thanks for posting a note...so thankful it went well. Can't wait to hear every detail when you feel up to it!

Congratulations again! Nan

Cathy,

Congratulations!!! You postings were very informative... It seems that my pericardiectomy is coming up at Cleveland pretty soon... maybe I should get the name of the nurse... just for as a precaution.:>)))

-mrozek

Hey Guys...

WELL I am still in the hospital and hoping they will leave me out Sat or Sun.  For the most part it went as planned....the "going in" part was tough...nothing like they said it would be...kicked my family away almost right off the bat..took me to this small room where I completely lost it...They went and got everyone, then I got about an hour visit time.  They took me to the OR, no IV nothing....I was crying pretty hard, just out of plain fear...of the thought of not coming out...no memory from there...they started asking me questions in the OR...not good, I said, please just put me to sleep now...the

anesthesiologist was not the one I met with days before, so this guy knew nohting about me, but like I said worse of all was the nightmare of the INTENSIVE CARE UNIT, where they let me LIE for easily 12 hours NO pain meds nothing.  They administered the epidereral; and they hit some nerve that sent the medicine down, so I ended up with numb legs and buttocks..but NOTHING ABOVE that, and the nurse was so mean and cold, I can't even express the nightmare.  I just Thank GOD it was just one night of TUBES..I think if you are properly medicated, I can see how you might sleep right through it, but not I said the fly...

I just had a coughing fit, if anyone has a coughing trick that doesn't feel like your insisions are ripping open, please tell me.  I want to tell you more, so much to tell you, but I am seeing crosseyed...they just gave me an 80mg oxy; and a shot of diliduad...wherewas this in ICU????arggggg  I need to rest, I will finish later guys..Cathy

Hi Everyone, Well I,m 7 weeks out and you can add my name to the Pleural Effusion list. I've been short of breath and asked my daughter to listen to my lungs and sure enough the left side girgled. Well, it took half the day today for the doctor to see me, get xrays and have it confirmed. The bad news is they won't perform the procedure till I'm off this darn cumadin for 4 days. That would be the 4th of July so they delayed it to Wed. because Tues. I have to get a blood test to be sure the drug is gone. What a pain. So I'm back in the do very little mode for few days.

Cathy, I hope things are better. I'm actually surprized you're on the computer already. I don't think I was awake or elert enough to do that so quickly. So glad you made it thru. Betsy

Hi Cathy,

I am very glad to hear that you came through all right. But I am shocked about the treatment. I had thought that the Mayo Clinic is one of the best centres in the world. I got so much better treatment in Christchurch New Zealand.

But very soon you wil feel much better and you will forget this trauma.

All the very best from

henk

New Zealand

Cathy!  So glad to hear that you're back among us.  Good to hear that you're surgery went well, and that you're now on the mend.  Strange, though, that your nurse was so evil...  There's a special place in hell reserved for people like that.  I can definitely relate to the pain issue.  They were giving me pain meds (Vicodin and Dilaudid), but they just didn't work.  Eventually they gave me morphine, and that helped a great deal.

As far as coughing goes, I think that you just have to accept the fact that it's going to hurt for a little while.  You have a different incision from the one I had (right?  I had a sternotomy---straight down the middle of my chest), and so I'm not sure how you should deal with it.  Teri's suggestion re: the pillow sounds like good advice to me, though.

In any case, that pain is rough but it gets better pretty quickly.  I remember that I got about 20 minutes of sleep in the first 36 hours after my surgery.

I did indeed have bilateral pleural effusion, and so I went in for my thoracentesis yesterday.  (I love the official, medical name for the procedure: "CT-guided drainage of bilateral pleural effusion".)  It turned out that there really wasn't all that much fluid in there, or in any case they weren't able to get that much fluid to come out.  Honestly, it seemed like the people who did my procedure were boneheads and imbeciles.  But, all in all, it was no big deal.  I was in and out of the hospital in a few hours.  The thoracentesis itself was a bit painful, especially when they're dragging that stupid tube across your bone, but not all that bad.

I do feel a little better now, but in all honestly, it wasn't all that bad to begin with.  Just some tightness in the ribs when I took a deep breath.  In any case, thanks to everyone who wished me well.

Maya---the fluid was in the pleura, or the area that surrounds the lungs.  There are these so-called "dead spaces" in your body, and the pleura are among them.  Normally they're empty, but sometimes, such as after a major surgery, they can become filled with fluid.

Betsy---sorry to hear that you're in for a good ol' chest tapping.  It goes quick, at least.

And Cathy, again, sorry to hear about your crummy nurse!  Do they have a charge nurse there, so you can report her?

All of this makes me a bit curious about others' experiences with their various hospitals' nursing staffs.  I think I was very lucky insofar as my nurses were all great--very nice, prompt, sweet, etc.  Also, I was asked by the charge nurse at virtually every shift change if I had any problems w/ any of the nurses....

Au revoir,

---Mister