Bi-V surgery, recovering at home

• by IronMan66
• 2009-08-04 07:08:16
• Surgery & Recovery
• 1651 views
• 2 comments

At home now, about 27 hours since the surgery. They released me at about 1:00 today after everything was tested and checked out ok. I think the Darvocit pain medicine they gave me was causing a lot of the dizziness. . . but it did kill the pain.
On a scale of 0-10, the pain now is about a 5. I decided to switch to Tylenol to see if that will work instead. I am told I have a high tolerance for pain, so I am hoping to avoid the Darvocit unless it gets really bad.
The scar looks pretty nasty. About 5 inches across. I can feel the device itself through the skin, and it's tough to get used to the skin being so tight. Definitley feels odd having this contraption in there. Can't move my left arm very well. Have a nice ice pack on it and that has really helped with the swelling. Luckily, I have a job where I am able to work from home, so I was able to log on and do about 3 hours of work - making things easier for me when I return. I took Mon-Tues-Wed off work just in case, but I will probably work about a half day tomorrow if I feel up to it.
As for the effect of the device, it is tough to tell. I think I can breathe a little better/deeper, but that is about all I can tell so far. Even when I take the deep breath the skin around the device tightens up, causing a strange sensation (I'll probably get used to that).

Going to try to get some sleep now, will log on later to continue this journal.

Keywords: biventricular pacemaker, LBBB, cardiomyopothy, congestive heart failure, ejection fraction 20%.