Anniversary Of 2nd Surgery

May 19, 2023

PHOTO: two photos of myself (taken by my wife on May 19, 2022) after my second of three heart-related surgeries last year at Boca Raton Regional Hospital in Boca Raton, Florida.

On this date last year (May 19, 2022), a surgeon removed the sternal plates from within my chest and also cleaned out much of a staph infection also from within my chest. A wound vacuum was attached to my chest, sucking out the remaining infection and discharge, running 24 hours per day. My chest remained open for about a week.

I entered the emergency room of the hospital on May 13, 2022, and I would not return home until July 21, 2022, spending a total of seventy (70) days in the hospital and at a physical rehabilitation facility.

It started on March 9, 2022, when I had quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery. When I arrived home from the hospital, I engaged in physical therapy and occupational therapy (at home), followed by cardiac rehabilitation at a nearby facility.

On May 13, 2022, I would enter the hospital with severe chest pains. It was determined that the screws in the sternal plates holding my broken breastbone together had come loose, and I had developed a staph infection within my chest. I would require the aforementioned surgery on May 19, 2022.

On May 25, 2022, another surgeon closed my chest by attaching seven sutures, leaving me with eight holes in my body from my lower neck to my upper belly, plus two drains in my belly.

On June 3, 2022, I was transferred from the hospital to a physical rehabilitation facility, where I engaged in daily physical therapy and occupational therapy. The wound vacuum was still attached to my chest, still running 24 hours per day, to aid in my healing. I received many painful bandage changes that involved the reattachment of the wound vacuum each time.

I returned home on July 21, 2022, a day before my wife's birthday.

NOTE: This came up as a memory listed on Facebook, which I rewrote for this post, and included the composite photo below. How did I have the strength to write the post, make the composite photo, and then post it on Facebook on the same day after such a surgery? I noticed that I used the wrong date on the composite photo in last year's post, so I corrected it (from 2002 to 2022) in this post.