It's been 5 day since my surgery..

Have been pretty nervous about the whole thing. I know I am going to feel better, I have that hope. The day after my surgery didn't go as well as I thought it would. An hour after I was returned to my room my incision started bleeding really bad and or course they put this pressure patch on my chest to hold pressure for 2 hours. They called it a hematoma, like a blood clot and told me they may have to go back in to clean it out. My doctor decided not to go back in. Chance of infection could be worse if they opened me up again. The bleeding did stop but later in the night I started getting this weird popping in my stomach and it went to my right side. I told the nurses right away, they told me it was trapped gas. Well it continued to go on for 3 days I could not sleep at all it was worse when I layed down. So I called my doctor since I had taken everything you could think of to get rid of trapped gas. It didn't work and even though the nurses in the hospital thought it was gas they never gave me anything. And of course I never said anything to my doctor about (GAS) I figured that was something too minor to discuss with him. Anyway, they told me to come to the office so they could check and rule out it had anything to do with the pacemaker. Well after they ran their test she told me the wire in the bottom of my heart (her words were she was not happy with the reading she got so she was going to call my doctor. But my doctor was on vacation in Mexico, she did get a hold of him (praise the lord) to make a long story a little shorter. I was not having gas for 3 days I was having spasm. That wiring she was not happy with was possibly touching a nerve and when she turned that wire off the spasm stopped. It is now Sunday and I have had no more spasm. That makes me feel so much better, she told me my pacemaker was working fine even with that one wire off. I will go back on Tuesday for my one week check-up. And I will find out what we need to do about that one wire not working. I hate the ideal of having to go back and do it all again, I am pretty nervous about it even though I haven't really expressed my feelings to my family. I know God will be with me, I am just human and no one wants to go through surgery again a week later for the same thing again. Has anyone ever had anything like this happen to them?

3 Comments

re: It's been 5 days...

by sindy - 2008-04-27 02:04:59

Hi, I had my pacemaker put in 5 weeks ago. I had hematoma too. Second week after my surgery, I woke up and had blood from hematoma all over my clothes and blanket...for 3 days. The nurse put bandage over the incision and that was it.

I am sorry you are having problems. I hope everything will be okay quickly. I know right now everything is scary and stressful. I felt like that too and still am. It wil get better. Atleast pacemaker is okay.

Good luck and let us know what happens. Take care.






Post PM

by harley63 - 2008-04-27 06:04:16

Hi Susankay~
Hope this post finds you having a better day. Your amoung the right people here on this site. We all have experienced a full range of feelings about our internal devices.

I did not have the spasms that your having.. instead I had, and still do on occasion, a numbness in my lower lip which extends across my face into my left ear lobe. This started one day after my PM was inserted. Workup has revealed that my PM is resting on a nerve(s) that affect that part of my face/ear.

From my personal experience with my PM I will give you this advice. DO NOT ever feel or think that something is too minor to bring up with your medical treatment team. Including the Dr. If it's important to you then it needs to be important to them. I did the same thing and now see that I should been have been more assertive. Make a list of things that you want to ask and take the list, a pen and another person with you to appointments. The other person does not have to be family. I've found a dear friend that I took in the beginning so that she could hear the "entire story" as I was having tunnel vision. There is SO much more to offer.. but there is not time nor space.. please look at the grey bar in the upper right portion of the site. You will find the search capability. This will come in very handy when you have questions or just seek information. Also send Private Messages by clicking on the members name in red or via the messaging on the left side of the site.

Hope that your recovery is speedy. Let us all know how you are doing.
Harley63

Bad Lead

by ElectricFrank - 2008-04-28 12:04:12

It sounds like a botched job to me. Don't let them get away with changing settings to get around a lead problem. They decided that both leads were needed for a reason and now it is just a way for them to avoid dealing with it.
At the first check up ask for a printout of the pre and post programming readings. This will do two things for you. First it will put them on notice that documentation of what they are doing exists outside their office. Second if you have problems there are several of us here on the site that can interpret the readings and maybe give you some suggestions.
One last thing. I realize that you don't want to go through any more surgery, but if the bad lead needs changing it will be much easier (and safer) now than later when it has scared into the wall of the vein.

good luck,
frank

You know you're wired when...

You have a dymo-powered bike.

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