World Heart Day

Today (September 29, 2025, at home) is World Heart Day, so I would like to (once again) tell you about my triple-surgical ordeal in 2022, regarding my heart. I am quite happy that I survived.

To see the photo below (if blurred by Facebook), just click/tap on "Learn more," then on "See photo," and you will be able to see it. The photo is of my wound four days after my third surgery of 2022 (May 29, 2022).

1st Surgery (March 9, 2022): I had quadruple coronary artery bypass surgery. As usual, a section of a vein in my left inner thigh was removed to be used in my open-heart surgery, which involved slicing my chest open vertically and breaking my sternum (breastbone) to access my heart. I had two drains installed in my belly. When I arrived home from the hospital, I engaged in physical therapy and occupational therapy (at home), followed by cardiac rehabilitation at a nearby outpatient facility.

2nd Surgery (May 19, 2022): A second surgeon removed the sternal plates from my first surgery that were holding my broken sternum pieces together from within my chest. The screws became loose. He also cleaned out much of a staph infection also from within my chest. A wound vacuum was then attached to my chest, sucking out the remaining infection and discharge, running 24 hours per day. My chest remained open for about a week with the wound vacuum constantly sucking.

3rd Surgery (May 25, 2022): A third surgeon closed my chest by attaching seven sutures, leaving me with eight holes in my body from my lower neck to my upper belly. The wound vacuum was reattached and continued to suck on my chest 24 hours per day for many more weeks with only 20-minutes-long dressing changes every two or three days. The vacuum's strong suction also served to pull my wounds together to increase the speed of my healing process.

Regarding my 2nd and 3rd surgeries, I entered the emergency room of the hospital on May 13, 2022, with severe chest pain, and I would not return home until July 21, 2022. I spent a total of seventy (70) days in the hospital and at a physical rehabilitation facility, the latter of which I entered on June 3, 2022. I requested to leave rehab because my pain was still rather intense which mostly prevented me from gaining any strength through my daily exercises there.

During the next two years, I would then have three more unrelated surgeries. I had two surgeries done on my spine: one to clean out an infected disk (September 2023), and one to attach a titanium metal rod to my spine that was "collapsing" due to a bone infection, as per my surgeon (October 2023). In April 2024, I had surgery on my right ankle due to a bone infection: bone biopsy, deburring, and fluid removal.