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Triple Heart Bypass

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Bishbash
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Joined: 09 Jan 2006
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PostPosted: 10:43 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Triple Heart Bypass Reply with quote
Hi people,

October last year my dad(55 years) had a heart attack due to smoking and bad food, resulting in a triple heart bypass being done on him over the xmas period. Since then he has recovered well apart from he is acting really strange.

Now I am hoping someone here has experienced the same with a family member. I have always seen him as a really really strong man, physically and mentally.

Now recently he has gone a little strange, in the way that he gets stressed and snaps easily, this I can handle. But last night really worried me that I heard him crying due to he cannot do the things he usually could due to he has lost a lot of strength in his upper body. He also started to cut the lawn yesterday and was doing the edges with a strimmer. He got frustrated and smashed the strimmer up as it did not cut it properly. Now these tow things are just not in his nature.

I think the main problem is he may think he is losing the 'man' power he has or maybe he doesn't feel 100% like a man. I dont know.


What I would like to know is how the hell do I handle this and has anyone experienced the same? Does it get better? How can I help?

Cheers

Bish
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Cigaro
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PostPosted: 11:57 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
It could be this - I know I'd get frustrated if I wasn't able to do the same things any more.

Upper body excercises may well help improve his strength!
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Bishbash
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PostPosted: 12:41 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
Its not so much his strength but, due to he had a artery removed from his right arm and left leg which makes it painful for him to move in certain ways.

BB
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b-f-c
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PostPosted: 13:07 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
A few family members have undergone open heart surgery over the years. The consultant warns about depression being a major side effect of the op, and usually recommend counselling and AD's as part of the recovery.

I guess its been a big comedown from him, currently being physically weaker than he used to be. He should be in physio rehab for at least 6 months after, full recovery from the op being quoted as 12-18 months.

The current member of the family had his op in April, and is still off work, he'll will usually call on others to help him with stuff he used to do no problem.

Guess he's been discharged from the consultant by now, so best try to get him to speak to his GP about it
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Annabella
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PostPosted: 13:24 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
fjrat wrote:
He should be in physio rehab for at least 6 months after, full recovery from the op being quoted as 12-18 months.


I was going to ask if he was having physio and maybe OT rehab?
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Whosthedaddy
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PostPosted: 16:33 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
Annabella wrote:
fjrat wrote:
He should be in physio rehab for at least 6 months after, full recovery from the op being quoted as 12-18 months.


I was going to ask if he was having physio and maybe OT rehab?


The rehab offered to patients in Essex is a 6 week program. If the cardiac rehab feels that it would be beneficial then they may suggest something further.

Physio and OT are neither here nor there. They are only there to get back to being independent in your ADL's. No real psychological screening or support is offered. This is the same in other cardiac investigations and therapies.

The reason for your dad being a little strange or his behaviour and attitude is different is due to something called 'hits'.

In short:

Arrow knackered hardened plaque ridden arteries are clamped to go onto bypass machine
Arrow Debris flakes off
Arrow Debris may then enter the systemic blood system and therefore go anywhere. The main problem may be when they enter the cerebral (causing a stroke or TIA) or the pulmonary (causing a PE) blood supply.
Arrow Each of these small events is termed a 'hit'. During a bypass operation, a patient may have several hundred hits. Therefore some people are affected more than others.
Arrow When the patient comes 'off the pump' they may have several larger hits.

There was a Panorama or Dispatches type program about it once. Scary stuff really and never mentioned din any stage of their op or even recovery.

Thats it in essence, there are other factors to do with the procedure and the type of operation.

I'll see if I can find something a little more concrete as I hate typing!!!!!



EDIT>Just google high-intensity transient signals .
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Whosthedaddy
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PostPosted: 16:59 - 02 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
BBC1 'Intensive Scares'

BBC wrote:

When you go into hospital for heart surgery you do not expect to get brain damage. But that is exactly what is happening to thousands of people a year in Britain.
Their characters change. Frequent symptoms include anger, depression, memory loss, confusion, problems with coordination and difficulties in doing more than one thing at a time.
Andrew Weston is a 33-year-old traffic warden from Reading. After his triple heart bypass surgery to treat an inherited heart condition, Andrew's life changed completely. His character changed.
"I get very, very angry", he told the BBC programme Intensive Scares: Heart Ache.
"The anger really comes along at the slightest little thing that happens."

Difficulties at home

Andrew's uncontrollable anger is starting to interfere with the professionalism of his job, but its effects are far worse at home, where his wife and three children feel the brunt of his anger.
"One day, when I was at home, I just couldn't take it no more. The way I felt, I broke down.
"I lost my temper. I smashed the cooker. I did a lot of things I shouldn't have done. And then I realised that there was something really wrong and I had to get it sorted out."
For a long time Andrew didn't realise that his mood swings had been caused by his heart surgery. Andrew also experiences deep depressive episodes and frequent memory losses.
His heart surgery may have saved his life, but it has put his whole marriage in jeopardy.

Severe memory loss

Mo Thornton had heart bypass surgery ten years ago and her memory has been severely damaged by the surgery. If her husband Pete tells her something, two minutes later she will have completely forgotten what he said.
She had to give up working and is virtually housebound, because she keeps getting lost when she leaves the house alone.
"I used to order thousands of lines at the shop I worked at. Now I can't even remember what's in my own grocery cupboard."
Mo has to write endless lists to try and remind herself what tasks she has to do each day. It is tremendously frustrating.
"I get very confused and panicky, because I know I should be doing something. Or getting something. And I can't remember what it is."

Preventable

Then there is Yvonne Kezthelyi who can remember the beginning of a journey and the end but completely forgets what happens in the middle.
Or Joe Xuereb who used to play chess for Malta but is now beaten by relative novices because, although he can remember all the right moves and combinations in his chess game, he plays them in the wrong order.
Intensive Scares: Heart Ache looks at how heart surgery has dramatically affected the lives of four ordinary people, and follows two further patients as they go through heart bypass surgery where the surgeons try out different techniques to minimise the likelihood of brain damage.
But most of this brain damage can be prevented.
And it is a British team led by world renowned Professor Stanton Newman, at UCL Middlesex, that has led the research in this field.

'Little strokelets'

He became aware that the problem is caused by "microemboli" - tiny bits of matter which break away from within the arteries during surgery and travel towards the brain.
"Imagine that it's a bit like kettle fur lining the inside of your arteries", explains Professor Newman.
"These are deposits which can be quite dangerous for the brain because if you clamp on them, they can go up into the brain and cause damage.
"What we're talking about, in a sense, is very tiny little strokelets, tiny little bits of damage to the brain where the supply of blood has been blocked."

Continuing work

Hundreds of tiny areas of the brain can die off in one operation.
But with various surgical techniques - such as using arterial filters in heart-lung machines, scanning arteries with an ultrasound probe before clamping them, minimizing the handling or "palpating" of heart and major arteries - surgeons can greatly reduce the incidence of this sort of brain damage in their patients.
And research continues.
Professor Newman's team is now looking at similar brain damage in other operations, like hip and knee surgery, and carotid artery surgery.




BMJ wrote:
https://www.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/327/7412/454.pdf

In the 21st century, media coverage faces tough challenges. As far back as the
1880s, the US newspaper publisher William Randolph Hearst defined news as “anything that makes the reader say, ‘gee whiz!’” However, it is tempting for reporters to turn investigative reporting into lurid sensationalism, as they have tended to do in
parts of this series. Intensive Scares, a set of three weekly programmes, focuses on the clinical consequences of acute hospital care. The programmes have attempted to portray real-life experiences by letting people tell their own stories as much as possible. Any expert opinion is confined to a minimum, and only then within a clinical context. The first episode, “Heart Ache,” opened with the line “When you go into hospital for heart surgery, you don’t expect to get brain damage.” It then looked at the day to day experiences of four people who had undergone heart bypass surgery and whose mental health, it claimed, had been affected. Interspersed with these accounts was the optimism of the team researching how to minimise the likelihood of any brain damage.
Heading the team is Professor Stanton Newman of University College London Hospitals, who has a unique interest in the mental health consequences of coronary
surgery. His description of plaque formation and the mechanism of embolism was clear and understandable, as was his description of an arterial filter incorporated within the heart/lung machine to reduce the number of emboli to the brain.
It was a shame, therefore, that the programme used so many acronyms (such as HITS—high intensity transient signals), which risked losing the lay viewer. By the
end of the programme, the viewer was left with the message that “brain tissue doesn’t repair” and that the devastating effects on the lives of people undergoing heart surgery is very much in their own hands. Harrowing scenes showing cardiac arrest during surgery and the commentary “vital signs flatline, as if he was dead” added more to a sense of drama than to public understanding, and appeared alarmist.

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Tarmacsurfer
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PostPosted: 10:14 - 03 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
I can only guess here, but I suspect it will indeed be frustration at what he sees as limits. Things that used to be easy to do, so easy he wouldn't even think about it, will be harder if not beyond him. Physio should help to some extent, a good practitioner will help isolate his problem movement ranges and show him ways to compensate.

I went from being a very active person (freestyle martial artist, downhill MTB racing, bike courier) to being unable to walk on most days. Although alot better than I was there are still certain triggers that render me pretty much helpless. It's hard to understand just how frustrating it actually is, it feels almost as though your body has become an enemy and is betraying you. It may make no sense to you, but he will be feeling trapped and on edge, not to mention possibly scared (that wasn't minor surgery he had).

I'm probably rambling now, but all you can do is be around and try to get your head around his point of view. Don't rush over whenever you see him having a bit of a problem doing things, that will just increase his stress. Just be around, maybe if you are close and get an opening you should try talking to him, let him know that you are trying to understand and you want him to feel he can talk to you.

Good luck Thumbs Up
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Bishbash
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PostPosted: 11:50 - 03 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
Tarmacsurfer,

That makes a lot more sense now I see your point of view, I actually did have a opportunity to speak with him last night too, which I now understand his issue a little better. As you said it is the frustration of his limits and also him not feeling like a real man due to these limitations.

I think I will use your suggestions and views on it as it sounds pretty spot on. I must thanks you for taking the time to write that out and explain it. It is highly appreciated.

And thank you everybody else for the information given. It all helps!


Many, many thanks

Neil
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hellkat
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PostPosted: 17:24 - 03 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
What Tarmacsurfer says is very valid.

Its very frustrating to discover that your body no longer does what it used to. Probably a lot of us have experienced a level of frustration when we've come off the bike and are incapacitated.

So if you think THAT'S bad ... imagine how it is when you're getting older and realise that you probably actually WON'T ever regain the strength and ability that you had in your youth.

I've not had any sort of major heart problems (yet) but in the last couple of years, my body has started saying to me "HELLO! You're getting old and sometimes weak/frail".

Its really annoying, and even I get agitated when I can't do something I used to be able to do without a second thought.

Its made me a lot more tolerant towards little old ladies!

I can totally understand your dad's frustration. You can only allow him to do it in his own time. So long as you let him know its okay to ask you to help him with stuff, and then leave him alone till he does ask.
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Vin
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PostPosted: 23:36 - 04 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
The only thing here I find a bit confusing is that if he needed a heart bypass he must have been pretty sick to start with. So presumably he couldn't do things he used to do in his youth anyway. So if the operation has been a success he should feel much better. Is it possible he is fed up because he hasn't experienced the improvments in his life he was expecting?
Maybe he just needs a bit more time. Its a massive operation after all. I hope it all works out. Karma
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Bishbash
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PostPosted: 12:57 - 05 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
Vin wrote:
The only thing here I find a bit confusing is that if he needed a heart bypass he must have been pretty sick to start with. So presumably he couldn't do things he used to do in his youth anyway. So if the operation has been a success he should feel much better.


Vin,

He had to have the operation due to his heart attack last year, which was of course caused by blocked arteries (years of smoking and saturated fats), 70% blocked to be precise. He had to have this triple heart by-pass to replace the blocked arteries. So he had arteries removed from arms and legs and put back in around his heart.

So his body/health was in fact good prior the heart attack, well so he thought and felt. It is really the aftermath of the huge operation that he has just gone through. As stated above it takes a while to recover from, but as you said it maybe also be the frustration of no real improvements yet.

hellkat wrote:
I can totally understand your dad's frustration. You can only allow him to do it in his own time. So long as you let him know its okay to ask you to help him with stuff, and then leave him alone till he does ask.


Hellkat,

This I will certainly do, thank you for your advise.

BB
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nrml76
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PostPosted: 19:20 - 05 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
It could be be either depression or a condition called postoperative cognitive dysfunction (POCD), which is especially common after cardiopulmonary bypass (which is essentially a machine that takes over the function of the heart and lungs during some types of cardiac operations). Most cases of POCD are evident in the first few weeks after surgery, and resolve gradually. In a few cases, the changes can be permanent. No one knows what the exact cause of POCD is. A lot of theories have been proposed, but nothing has been proven.
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Bishbash
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PostPosted: 11:52 - 06 Jul 2007    Post subject: Reply with quote
POCD! Confused Not heard of that I will look into it!

Thanks
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