It's official, I'm having heart surgery on Feb 18th...wow, it's real now.

[PolishStout]

*hugs for healins*!!!

 

[annasdadhockey]

Please get better soon. People around here are going ape**** without you. Hurry.

 

[Hermit]

Revvy. My airlock isn't bubbling......



Of course I have just emptied out all of my fermenters....
Get healthy...

 

[ChshreCat]

Please get better soon. People around here are going ape**** without you. Hurry.

Don't worry. I just keep telling folks "Revvy says you should dump it."

 

[lou2row]

Looking good my friend. Even with tubes and stuff sticking out of you. I still wouldn't have sex with you, but that's how I roll.

The surgeon today told me that normally the valve opens up to the size of a 50 cent piece, but mine only opens to the size of a dime,

Fortunately, you have had plenty of experience dealing with something a third of the size of a normal mans.

This is as close as I get to being all mushy. Get well dude!

 

[Hockeyhunter99]

get better Revvy,

we will be praying and brewing for you (in that order)

 

[Revvy]

My boss just came and visited, as did my family. I've walked a couple times. Everybody is saying I'm doing great, all the docs and everything.I'm going home either tomorrow or Monday. I'm showered and shaved and feel really good. I know it's the pain killers, but I'm feeling great.

My boss noticed something, that he didn't realize before. But he just noticed color in my ears. He didn't realize but I never got much blood there evidently. I even think I'm breathing better. I can't describe it but I don't fell like I'm dragging ass. There's a level of clear headedness or something.

I mean I thought I'd be feeling like I had the flu, got violently mugged, was used as the chew toy in the running of the bulls in Spain, and kicked in the privates by a midget cage wrestler all on the same boring afternoon. And I feel pretty good.

I'm sitting here in my hospital room listening to RTE (Radio Ireland) online and surfing the web. all I really need is a beer to make the night (a Guinness sounds great right now.)

 

[Pilgarlic]

Where do they put the airlock after surgery so you can watch the bubble? Seriously, it's great to see you posting and getting better.

 

[vicegrip]

I’m glad to hear your doin well Revvy. I have learned a lot from you on HBT and I thank you for that good luck and keep keepin on.

 

[Revvy]

Where do they put the airlock after surgery so you can watch the bubble? Seriously, it's great to see you posting and getting better.

In the hole where they took out the chestube actually...Which come to think about it DOES bear a bit of a rememblance to a blowoff tube, except coming out of the center of my chest.

But so does the catheter actually.

(boy I hope my weenus goes back to it's original size and shape, it's looking a little.......little actually and misshapen)

 

[bob1852]

(boy I hope my weenus goes back to it's original size and shape, it's looking a little.......little actually and misshapen)

And to think the guy conned us into believing that he was having heart surgery when he was really having........nevermind

 

[Shooter]

Good news!!!

Well, not that whole catheter part. I meant the other stuff...

 

[Dunerunner]

..boy I hope my weenus goes back to it's original size and shape, it's looking a little.......little actually and misshapen.

My God!! Did they work on that, TOO

 

[r2eng]

Great news!

I am really happy you can already feel the difference from the surgery. Glad to have you back!

 

[Reelale]

Great news. Here's to continued, rapid progress.

 

[sudbuster]

Oh, Revvy boy, The Newbs, the newbs are calling, from glen to glen and........

 

[Revvy]

Oh, Revvy boy, The Newbs, the newbs are calling, from glen to glen and........

Believe me, I've glanced over the last couple days.....I dunno, I think I need some time to recover more before tackling that.....Or stronger drugs.

 

[shamrockdoc]

GO with the stronger drugs. Great to hear good news about cha Revvy!

 

[sudbuster]

Believe me, I've glanced over the last couple days.....I dunno, I think I need some time to recover more before tackling that.....Or stronger drugs.

Great to see you're dong well, Revvy. Best wishes. Oh yeah, stronger drugs are good....

 

[McKBrew]

Glad to hear you made it through and are doing better.

Here's to many more good years of brewing, drinking and being a part of the HBT community.

 

[jds]

Great news, Revvy!

My wish for you is a really cure nurse when it's time to remove the catheter.

 

[Revvy]

Great news, Revvy!

My wish for you is a really cure nurse when it's time to remove the catheter.

That was done 2 days ago by a Dood.....I've really only had one cute nurse this whole process, the one that got me ready to leave Icu to go to the cardiac unit. Kinda dark haired italian hottie.

There was a cute blonde running around this floor at shift change, I was hoping she was going to be my night nurse...but I got the old lady instead...

 

[lumpher]

great... you saw 1 who was easy on the eyes, and got her brutus grandmother instead...

 

[Emc]

So strong drugs= Italian hottie/ cute nurse. Guess it's true, the withdrawal is a bitch (reality it was the old maid all along). Drinking a guiness for you. Quick recovery sir and all our thoughts are with you.

 

[Revvy]

A rant over constantly being woken up every hour in Sicu, and every 4 in the cardio ward By Revvy.

I've come to suspect that the every four hours vitals checking probably
contravenes the body's natural capacity to use sleep as a heal method. As I sit here in my chair, in the cardio ward having not hadd too much sleep (though more than the last few nights,) I'm wondering if it's not bureaucratic medicine and the pharmaceutical industry's conspiracy to actually have to pay vast sums of money for something that, with enough time, the body can do for free.

We've all heard for years that sleep is nature's great healer, yet in the place where theoretically the greatest place of hearing is supposed to be, this old maxim is virtually ignored in favor of data collection with then usually results in the dispensation of drugs to "promote" healing.

Maybe if you'd let me sleep even the minimum that is recommended daily requirement for health and happiness I'd actually feel better, and my bones could be allowed to knit naturally.

Think about this. I'm on heart monitor right now, which is I think monitoring my heart rate, respiratory function and god knows what else. For most of the week especially in bed, I've been hooked to a BP cup and Oxygen censor. So why for god sakes can't you just hook me back to those things at bedtime along with the wifi heart monitor (heck why couldn't you plug the Bp cup and o2 finger sensor INTO my heart monitor) I'm already on and let me sleep? Why do you need to come into my room every 4 hours to do these things?

Again, we know sleep is an important factor, so why won't you let us sleep. You can't deny the role of sleep in healing. Dr Larry Wilson say's this about it;

During the day, one primarily uses the sympathetic nervous system, associated with spending energy and tearing down the body. This is balanced by the parasympathetic system, associated with rest, nurturing and regeneration of body tissues. This is equally important and takes place when one is resting. One may call it maintenance or repair time.

If you skimp on regenerative activity by not sleeping enough, physical and mental performance suffers, as well as one's work and relationships. Illness develops because there is not enough time to repair damaged tissues in the body. If you have a chronic illness, you definitely need extra rest and sleep.

There's countless articles such as this, about the role of sleep in wound healing.

Sleep Deprivation Delays Wound Healing
Implications and Risks
Christine Cadena,

Without proper sleep, the body can not recovery and rejuvenate for the next day. Sleep deprivation is a stress induced complication but can also lead to additional stress upon the body. For individuals who suffer
from injury, sleep deprivation can have an adverse affect on the healing and recovery process.

Wound healing is a complex physiological process that engages protein changes, cell division and replication, and promotes the release of growth hormones. With sleep, these processes are vastly improved. When sleep deprived, the body is unable to engage in the wound healing processes as it is actively working to maintain normal bodily functions. With sleep deprivation, the most significant complication involves the loss of growth hormone secretion which not only impairs wound healing, it impairs total body function.

If you suffer from an injury that involves a wound, either internal or external, it is important to understand the impact your sleep may have on your recovery. In many cases, pain and other wound healing complications impede the ability of the sufferer from gaining quality sleep. As a result, pain medications prescribed often include both a pain alleviating component but also a sleeping aide. As you work through your recovery, it is important to ask your physician to guide you through the processes that involve sleep and to reduce the risk for sleep deprivation.

In addition to the actual wound healing process, quality sleep also serves to promote improvement in the immune system. With improved immune system, you can reduce your risk for additional injury, infection and improve your mental state of mind. These dynamics are also important to the wound and injury healing process.

The timing of your sleep deprivation may also play an impact on the wound healing process. As a general train of thought, the first five days following your injury may result in some degree of sleep deprivation but
this sleep deprivation does not adversely affect your wound healing process. It is the sleep deprivation that occurs in the period beginning after day six that may have the greater long term impact on your wound healing. Therefore, management of your wound healing and sleep deprivation should be highly focused well past day five.

Yet since the days even before Clara Barton, institutional medicine has adopted the idea of a constant 24 hour cycle of taking vital signs every 4 hours or so, even during the darkest parts of the night, when it would seem our bodies could best benefit from a simple full night's sleep, which it seems from the literature to allow the body to produce on it's own those healing compounds.

I keep coming upon articles by nurses about pretty much what I've been saying about the role of sleep in healing, but they never seem to mention their own culpability it this seeming contradiction or hypocrisy.

Florence Nightengale even wrote of this nearly 200 years ago;

There are certain patients, no doubt, especially where there is slight concussion or other disturbance of the brain, who are affected by mere noise. But intermittent noise, or sudden and sharp noise, in these as in all other cases, affects far more than continuous noise—noise with jar far more than noise without. Of one thing you may be certain, that anything which wakes a patient suddenly out of his sleep will invariably put him into a state of greater excitement, do him more serious, aye, and lasting mischief, than any continuous noise, however loud.

Never to allow a patient to be waked, intentionally or accidentally, is a sine qua non of all good nursing. If he is roused out of his first sleep, he is almost certain to have no more sleep. It is a curious but quite intelligible fact that, if a patient is waked after a few hours’ instead of a few minutes’ sleep, he is much more likely to sleep again. Because pain, like irritability of brain, perpetuates and intensifies itself. If you have gained a respite of either in sleep you have gained more than the mere respite. Both the probability of recurrence and of the same intensity will be diminished; whereas both will be terribly increased by want of sleep. This is the reason why sleep is so all-important. This is the reason why a patient waked in the early part of his sleep loses not only his sleep, but his power to sleep. A healthy person who allows himself to sleep during the day will lose his sleep at night. But it is exactly the reverse with the sick generally; the more they sleep, the better will they be able to sleep. (Notes on Nursing, V.)

So why oh why can't you just let me sleep?

/rant.

 

[MeatyPortion]

Word up, Revvy. Glad to see you're still your old self.

 

[Revvy]

Ok, so I had a "semi" this morning. I was woken up at 4 for a blood draw. And there was something about the flobotomist that got my happy place tingling. She wasn't "hot" like a pornstar nurse or anything, she was this cute little petite, mid 40's brunette who sort of had, divorcee single mom of a couple kids, one in college (which she was very open about telling me about) vibe about her. You know the kind of person that you'd bump grocery carts with in the grocery store on your day off from work, who you'd then decide to grab a drink in a bar in the middle of the afternoon, and then hopefully bump uglies with before the teenager came home from soccer for dinner.

She was cute more than hot, and yet that cute, came out as sexiness. She was really small (compared to me) and I really was thinking how we could have easily played ride me cowgirl on the narrow hospital bed, without her putting too much pressure on my chest.....

So yeah, the;

was back.

 

[OldJack]

Let me re-cap for my own head here. Complaining about waking up every 4 hours. Thinking about bumping uglies in a hospital bed.....all signs point to a complete recovery. Good to see it for sure.

 

[bigdug]

Are you sure this wasn't a dream you were just complaining about sleep depravation you know.

The real reason they wake you up all night is so the nurses don't fall asleep themselves.

Prayers for a quick and complete recovery.

 

[Shooter]

Dude, I hear you on the no sleep thing. When both kids were born the nurses were in every two or three hours and then after every visit they would say, "Now, you be sure to get some rest." Hey, IDIOTS, we could do that if you didn't keep coming in and waking us up. The baby isn't the one waking us up it's YOU people!!!