Home Care Guide After Side Chest Incision First Week After Discharge: ✽ Someone needs to stay with you 24 hours a day for this entire week. ✽ Be up and about as much as possible. You may lift your arms and do light arm exercises (no weights) twice daily. ✽ Do not lift more than five pounds at a time this week. ✽ Follow the instructions you were given at the hospital for cleaning your incisions. ✽ If you have them, remove the paper strips from incisions one week after going home if they haven’t already been removed. ✽ Take your medicine as prescribed. Remember to take your pain medicine as you need it. ✽ Wear support stockings during the day. ✽ Eat a low-fat diet and try to stay away from salt. If you are diabetic or have had high blood sugars in the hospital, watch your sugar intake!
Leon Burchett of Vinton enjoys an afternoon of car washing and being outdoors.
✽ Weigh yourself every morning and write if down. If you gain more than two pounds from one day to the next for two days in a row or four or more pounds in a week, call your heart surgeon’s office. ✽ Don’t forget to use your breathing device (spirometer) every one to two hours while you are awake (take about five deep breaths). ✽ Cough after deep breathing, but don’t forget to use your cough bear for support! ✽ Walk 10 minutes three times daily. Stay on level ground this week. Walk indoors if it is colder than 32 degrees or hotter than 80 degrees outside. ✽ Leave the driving to someone else!