How did you sleep after open heart surgery?

Heart surgery tomorrow?

• Im a 13 year old boy and i have heart arrhythmia or irregular heart beat. i am having open heart surgery tomorrow at 6:00 and im kinda scared. My friend told me that i will wake up with a tube in my throat, and one kid said most people die in heart surgery's. Will i be ok, how much pain after, how long to stay at the hospital, whats it like to get put to sleep. Can you just explain whats going to happen the whole day.

• Answer:

  Hi, I'm 13 too (soon to be 14!) and I can absolutely, totally, without any shadow of a doubt promise you your friends are talking crap! I've had over 20 heart operations (Mum thinks 23 or 24) so far and I'm still very much alive and kicking! I was born with only half a heart (HLHS) and the blood supply from my lungs was all shot (TAPVD), so if anyone's a candidate for dying it'd have to be me...but as I said, still very much alive and kicking. My friend told me that i will wake up with a tube in my throat, That depends what you're having done, ? cardiac ablation, ? insertion of a pacemaker. Yes, there is a small chance that when you first start to wake up you'll still have the breathing tube in your throat. You'll still be very groggy at that point though and the moment you start to wake up, you'll start trying to cough the tube out (it's a reflex thing) and then your nurse'll know you're waking up and he/she'll take the tube out for you (it doesn't hurt). It will be gone by the time you're awake enough to know about it. one kid said most people die in heart surgery's. Rubbish, crap, bull$hit. Having heart surgery is very, very, very safe. Old people in their 80s have heart surgery, tiny premature babies have heart surgery. They're high risk and they still do fine. Otherwise healthy teenagers are not high risk. As I said, I've had more than 20 heart operations and I'm still alive. Will i be ok Yes how much pain after, Depends exactly what you have done but you may be sore and stiff for a while. If you're in pain all you need to do is tell your nurse and they'll give you some painkillers. Either that or you'll have a pump and whenever you want painkillers you just have to press a button to get an automatic dose of painkillers through your IV. how long to stay at the hospital, Prolly not as long as you think. Again depends if the surgery is ablation or pacing or what but prolly 5 days max. maybe. whats it like to get put to sleep. Fine. No big deal. It's a needle in the back of your hand which you don't feel cuz you've already got a cannula in there (you may also be given an oxygen mask to breathe). They ask you to "Count backwards from 10" and you start counting: 10, 9, 8, Sev............. And that's it. You won't remember the actual falling asleep bit. Then the next thing you know there's a nurse telling you to wake up and open your eyes (they always sound like your mum when she's trying to drag you out of bed for school on a monday morning!). If you're anything like me you'll wake up convinced it's an ordinary morning and you're waking up in your own bed at home; then you open your eyes and look around you and for a second you can't quite work out where you are or what on earth you're doing there but very quickly it all comes back to you ("Oh yeah, I'm in hospital, just had surgery, vague memory of getting that needle in the back of my hand"). Can you just explain whats going to happen the whole day. The staff at your hospital really should have told you everything already when you went to clinic before now. Don't know if your hospital website has anything on its website but this is my hospital's website: http://www.gosh.nhs.uk/teenagers . If you go there and click on either the children's pages or teenagers pages, there's more stuff explaining what it's like being in hospital, having surgery, having heart surgery in particular. It may help you if you go take a look. Good Luck. I'll be thinking of you.