POST OPERATIVE COURSE
After surgery an entire team of highly skilled Cardiac surgery Doctors, intensivists, advance
practice providers and nurses and will be managing your care up to your discharge.
After completion of surgery you will be taken either to open
heart recovery room (OHRR) or surgical intensive care unit
(SICU). You will be comfortable and sleeping due to
anesthesia and ample pain medication will be administered
to ensure you are pain free. Your family will be able to visit
about an hour after completing your surgery. There will
many IV's, wires, tubes and monitors connected for close
monitoring.
Once you are awake and anesthesia has worn off, the
breathing tube that is in place to help you breath will be
removed. It is our goal to have you off of the breathing machine in less than four to six hours.
Immediately after, deep breathing exercise will be important. The nurse and respiratory
therapist will assist you. You will have a "breathing toy" called an incentive spirometer. It is
very important for you to use this toy at least five times an hour after you are removed from the
breathing machine.
Once you are stable to be transferred out of the OHRR/SICU, you will be brought to our step
down unit called 2-Core. Typically, your chest tubes and temporary pacing wires, if present,
will be removed by an Advanced Practice Provider on post op day 2 or 3.It is our priority to
allow you to heal and at the same time having you out of the hospital in a timely manner.
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