Recovering From Heart Surgery

A good friend of mine underwent what he called a "mitral valve repair".  To me this sounded like something you would do to your car!  "Oh yes"... I said... "a valve replacement".  And will you be in the hospital for this "repair" I asked.  I know when my car needs a valve replacement, it takes a while and it's expensive.  Not much different when they do it on you.... huh?

Sure enough, his hospital stay was about as long as when my car goes into the shop... but that's where the similarities end.  Although your car will up and raring to go right when you pick it up, this is not the case with the patient recovering from their valve replacement surgery.

Recovery time for my friend was six to eight weeks and that length of time truly varies from one person to another.  He was also given instructions for wound care, diet guidelines, rehabilitation instructions, driving and activity level suggestions and guidelines.  The list was endless.  I think his recovery of six to eight weeks was so that he would have time to read all of the instructions sent home with him!

He was given plenty of medications to take while recovering and restrictions as far as going to the dentist which I thought was interesting.  All in all though, he was a very obedient patient, followed all of his doctor's instructions and I'm happy to say he is doing fantastic.  In fact, he's much better than my car... which is again back in the shop!

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