Andrea..!! Thank you so much, you are really so very sweet, I really have struggled thorough this and really was not the posterchild for pericardiectomys, I had the hardest timee. As far as the nurses, you can just really tell who likes their jobs and who doesn't. I should have mentioned that a nurse that I met while getting ready for my heart cath was one of the sweetest nurses, she calmed me down, and it worked, and she sat next to me and held my hand until it was time to go....she ended up giving me her phone number and email address to stay in touch. Well, the day before I was leaving i turned around and there she was saying" YOU did it, I am so proud of you!!" She hugged and sincerely and I mean sincerely really cared. So, I feel bad I spoke only of NURSE RANCHET because there were some great ones. Nurse Ranchet oviously got off on seeing suffering, and was the most cold blooded person I have ever seen. When I could pull myself up to try and relieve the tubes all over my back, she would PUSH me down, and tell me that I was completely out of line, and then to punish me, she would PULL the sheet underneath me to strongly shift every tube wire...you name it to be mean, she did it...but, that is over and done, she was reprehended, and they will take it from there. I just diint not want to see it happen to anyone else...why she thought I was "faking it", when three other patients slept quietly; and one screamer that never stopped should have signaled to her that something was really wrong. Teri, you really rocked, I was in the hospital unable to leave the floor and they had a computer hooked up to the internet, literally the third day, I was on looking for you all, to tell you...WHOO HOOO, I LIVED...YOU were all right!
Anyways...TERI...NAN...and Maya, Dancing waters, Andrea...Mister and Betsy..I am overwhelmed by your support..I have been toast for the week, so very hard, but, they say they got a good portion of it off. The back still there..area's the size of 50 cent pieces left.....when I went into AF, that is when they pulled the plug, (not literally...LOL) they told me that my jugular vein distention went down about an inch, and my symptoms may return at any moment. I am still swelling, it stopped then started again. I am still so ill that I did go to the quick care yesterday, they wanted to admit me to the hospital, and they called my cardiogist, and he agreed, I told them its fourth of July, Cleveland was down to a skelton crew, they had none of my records, and I said I would see my cardiogist Tuesday....
so tomorrow I will let you all know. I am still running a temp...still can't take a deep breathe...scarring is massive...allthe way under each breast (right in the crease), then they travel UP towards the armpit......about one inch....so its not bad..just hurts to look at, and live with.
Mozark, I know you will like Cleveland, just make sure they are completely honest with you, they told me a lot of things, that were just not true...Tell them you want MASSIVE pain meds while you are in ICU......make them to put it in writing, and one last thing, you want in writing from YOUR doctor/surgeon that a family member of YOURS can see you every HOUR in ICU. They ran my family off, so while I laid their sufftering calling out to them, they were locked out, PLUS in my report, nurse ratchet wrote, "tried to find family to visit patient in ICU, no family around"...bull crap!!! You can even tell them about me...Catherine Brown just had surgery there, and suffered horrible in ICU!
If this is impressive, the Prime Minister of Kawait was there, he had an entire top floor of the Intercontinetal, and about 35 black Lincoln Towncars with drivers all lined up in front of the hotel and they would just stand by their cars and shine them. Secret Service was there..the guys walking around with the wires coming out their ears...and he was having heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic..we never saw him, but when he crossed a street in his limo or SUV the police would completely shut down the intersection that he was passing and you would see the start of the presession of police, motorcycle cops, a LONG LONG parade of cars then him in the middle, then another five rows of cop cars behind him. I had never seen anything like it. So needless to say, he traveled some way to have heart surgery, so where I was can't be bad, they just had some people that weren't honest on how things were going to be. Klein told me I was lucky because the calcification was localized to one spot, and then another surgeon and Lytle said my heart was COMPLETELY COVERED, from back to front and side to side, he told me they had never seen or dealt with calcification to this degree, and that I would be in their record of records. So let the healing begin! HOW soon could you take a breathe and not have intense pain, and the stingers, and when can I pull the tape off..UGGG..Big owie...waaaaa...
your friend, the baby sorry so long.....!
Cathy!