Recovery Time After Surgery

• by TomM1956728
• 2013-04-02 02:04:43
• General Posting
• 5159 views
• 2 comments

I recently posted a message about my 88 year old mother who went to the hospital for an infection, low white blood cells and fever due to chemotherapy she received for esophageal cancer.

While at the hospital, her heart began to experience pauses of over 7 seconds on Friday. These pauses occurred at least 5 or 6 times during the day while I was there, and God knows how many times during the night.

The hospital staff told my mother that since her oncologist had informed them that she only had about 6 months to live due to her cancer, Medicare would not pay for the pacemaker. They said that Medicare would only pay for a pacemaker for people who are expected to live at least another year.

Regarding this issue, I received extremely helpful advice from people on this discussion board. Thank you Smitty, TraceyE, Zia, AngrySparrow, Cropduster, Janetinak, and Kcruz!!! I really appreciate your thoughts and ideas which helped me a great deal.

Based on the advice I got from you folks on this discussion board, I called Medicare and found out that they actually do pay for pacemakers regardless of how long a patient is estimated to live.

After hearing this I went to the hospital on Sunday at around 11 a.m. It so happened that between 7 a.m. and 11 a.m., my mother’s heart rate had been stable, so one of the doctors walked into her room and said that they were discharging her because she is feeling okay.

I told him that Medicare does pay for pacemakers and that she needed a pacemaker. We argued about the issues for quite a while but I did let him know that my mother wanted and needed to get a pm.

About 10 minutes after he left the room, my mother once again experienced one of those long pauses where her body shook violently and she lost consciousness.

A few hours later, the Head of the Cardiology department and another doctor came by and spoke to us and verified whether we really want a pm. We said yes. He said that they would put a temporary pm tomorrow, Monday, and they would install a permanent pm a few days later when they got one.

On Monday morning, we were told that my mother would get a permanent pm the next day, i.e., on Tuesday.

However, now they said that they had paged her oncologist, that her oncologist was coming to the hospital in person to talk to my mother to tell her that she only had about 6 months to live and to verify whether my mother really wanted a pm in light of her short life expectancy. After some argument, I told them that we didn’t want to talk to the oncologist.

About an hour later, they told us that she was going to have surgery to get a permanent pm at 2:30 p.m. on that same day, Monday.

The surgery was done at 2:30 p.m. It went very well and was over by 4 p.m. My mother was awake and alert and said that during the surgery, she was conscious and felt no pain.

However, a few hours after the surgery, two doctors came to her room – one at around 6 p.m. and the other at around 7 p.m. or so - and asked us when we were leaving. I said I don’t know. They both asked if one of the staff members had told us when we were supposed to leave. I said no. One of the nurses later asked us the same question.

It appears to me that they want us out of there as soon as possible.

My question is how much time does a patient generally need to recover from pm surgery? I would think they need to be in the hospital at least a few days?

Of course, I have no experience with these things so I could be totally wrong.

When I left the hospital at around 8 p.m. about 4 hours after the surgery yesterday, my mother looked good. She had no pain and had experienced no pauses which I hope means that the pm is working well.

However, I am still worried due to the fact that she is 88 years old and is very weak due to 2 years of chemo.

What complications can develop after surgery? I’m just worried that if she is discharged early she may experience some problems at home.

Also, I just talked to her over the phone today, and she said the doctor said he would have to adjust the pacemaker. What does that mean?

I would greatly appreciate any help and advice. Thank you very much once again for all your time, support, and kind assistance! Tom