Doctor With Strange Sense of Humor

The only remarkable thing about my three-day stay in the hospital while recovering from the TAVR was one of the attending doctors that was following me.

I think his name was Jonathen?

Anyway, the morning after surgery he came to check on me. I think he was trying to be funny, but he didn't introduce himself or what his role in my care was and started with, "Why are you still here? Haven't you left yet?"

Huh?

"I just had my aortic valve replaced."
"I know. But the guy we did before you has already been discharged."
"And he had his aortic valve replaced?"
"Yep. Same as you."
"Through his ribs?"
"No. Through his right groin."
"Well, that's different. If you're going to compare apples to apples. It's a complete different surgery, and one that's much easier to recover from."

All I got in response was a shrug. Weird!

Then he says, "Well, you're not still on pain medicines, are you? We need to get you off those."

Really? I can tolerate pain pretty well, but I'm in quite a bit of pain--from the chest tubes and especially when I cough.

In general though, I try to figure out people's expectations and then do everything I can to exceed them. I'm a pleaser by nature, so I immediately start trying to figure out how to at least reduce the amount of pain medication I'm taking.

The next day when he comes to check on me, I'm prepared.

I announce, "Hey, I'm down to taking pain medications only every six hours."

He doesn't let me finish before he cuts me off with "Trish, you just had your aortic valve replaced; and we had to go through your ribs. I don't want you even thinking about reducing your pain mediation yet."

What? Now I'm really confused. When I mentioned how strange and confusing his conversations were to Sally, she says that he just has a really odd manner and not to worry about it too much because I definitely can't change him.

It turns out that open heart surgery is actually easier and less painful to heal from because there are hardly any nerves around your sternum, yet your ribs are wrapped with lots of nerves. Interesting.