Prayer request for FIL

[Szdfan]

I’m not sure this is where to post this, but I have a rare prayer request…

My father-in-law, Dean, will be having open-heart surgery in Denver later this week (valve replacement). My wife will be going up with them on Wednesday to support my mother-in-law.

My wife lost her father to cancer when she was 14, so Dean is her much beloved stepfather. Dean was also widowed when he married my wife’s mom. The family generally gets a long, but there have been some tensions lately on how best to care for the parents during this time. Please pray for that as well.

Thanks

[GaryK]

I'll be praying!

[mike]

Praying.

[ragpicker]

Oh man. That’s tough. I’ll be praying.

[silentreader]

Praying, Szdfan.

[JimFoxvog]

Praying for Dean and your wife.

[Bootstrap]

Praying.

[Ken]

I had the same surgery last January. It went well. I’m still here but it knocked me back for at least a month until I recovered my strength. Of all the kinds of open heart surgeries one can have, this is probably the best one. I felt dramatically better almost immediately after my initial recovery. Difference is night and day.

[Szdfan]

I had the same surgery last January. It went well. I’m still here but it knocked me back for at least a month until I recovered my strength. Of all the kinds of open heart surgeries one can have, this is probably the best one. I felt dramatically better almost immediately after my initial recovery. Difference is night and day.

We feel pretty good about his chances. One of our concerns is making sure he rests enough after surgery. He doesn't sit still.

[Ken]

I had the same surgery last January. It went well. I’m still here but it knocked me back for at least a month until I recovered my strength. Of all the kinds of open heart surgeries one can have, this is probably the best one. I felt dramatically better almost immediately after my initial recovery. Difference is night and day.

We feel pretty good about his chances. One of our concerns is making sure he rests enough after surgery. He doesn't sit still.

Not going to be a problem. They want you to drag your butt up off the bed and walk around as much as possible. The day after my surgery I was making required laps around the cardio ward with my IV in tow. It hurt and sucked but I did it because they demanded it. I was supposed to do it several times a day, more than I felt like. When I got home I was supposed to be doing lots of walks and moving around. It was shocking to me how much major surgery saps your strength and energy. It really takes weeks to get your strength and energy back.

The biggest thing they absolutely warn you about is lifting or straining your chest. You are supposed to have a pillow that you grasp in your arms so that you never use them to reach out and pull yourself up out of a seated position. And aren’t supposed to lift anything for risk of splitting your chest suture open again. They saw through your breastplate and then wire it back together and it takes a long time for the bones to knit back together. So that is the biggest risk, that he does something stupid and tries to lift something and splits his chest back open. Then they have to open him back up, wire the bones back together again, and start over with the healing, resulting in longer recovery and much bigger scars and general annoyance on the part of the surgical team. Week by week and month by month they slowly up the amounts that you are able to lift and how much you can’t strain your chest until about 6 months when you are 100% back to normal