Glad you are hanging in there....
1) Do you have your own blood pressure cuff ??
Like a Omron ??
Which are very good by the way .. .
If not.... Buy one.... Don't wait. You need to know what is going on with your blood pressure.
2) Do you have a oxygen pulse oximeter ? ?
If not.... Get one... This will track your heart rate but also your arterial oxygen level. Definitely good to have that information available too.
Note of caution....
You may actually have more trouble with low blood pressure.... Not high blood pressure.
My step father had open heart surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. He had atrial fibrillation. He had valve replacement and the maze procedure done too.
After surgery .... The weeks that followed he had much more trouble with low blood pressure. Like 70s and 80s systolic over 40s and 50s diastolic.
Drink your water..... Stay hydrated.
My step father struggled with that and he had spells of lower blood pressure from not drinking enough water.
In fact in his cardiac rehab program my step father was not doing well and had a low blood pressure 72/46 and his heart rate was not good.
They took him in a wheelchair across the street to the hospital ER and he had to be given IV Cardizem to regulate his heart beat, rate and rhythm. And a IV fluid bolus to bump up his blood pressure too.
No, I'm having trouble keeping it down.
Yes, I have two blood pressure machines, an Omron and a BIOS, been using the Omron. It's been trending down the last few days after we quadrupled the amount of Perindopril I'm on, it was 117/80 last night for example, which is good, we are trying to keep it around 120. I had hit 130/81 when I first got home, which is too high (but won't cause any issues, we are just trying to keep the average pressure low while the graft heals and the valve adapts to its new location). I'm also on two separate beta blockers.
I do not have an oxygen pulse oximiter, but when I was at my GP's office the other day my oxygen level was at 99, and it was good in the hospital too (my procedure was the end of November) and hasn't appeared to be an issue.
Somewhat amusingly, the RPN that I was dealing with at the hospital was somewhat freaked out by the volume of beta blockers and other meds I was on and hesitant to adjust up further. But was eventually willing to increase the dose (Cardiologist's orders) because I had a pace maker (It never kicked on when it was attached, ever) as she indicated that the levels I was taking would have killed most of the patients.
This brings us back to the issue I was having and why my blood pressure is now up, which is a very different issue from your step father I suspect.
I'm quite active, used to be a competitive swimmer and having a bicuspid aortic valve, it has always leaked. As I've aged, the leaking has gotten worse and my heart has been working harder in order to compensate for the regurgitation/back-flow. Basically, every time it pumped, a good portion of that blood was coming right back in, so it had to pump harder.
So, we fix the valve and my heart is still conditioned to the previous situation, it thinks it has to work hard still, which, with a non-leaky valve now drives my blood pressure up considerably! So, we are having to drag it down with meds for the time being until it readjusts. It will eventually do so, and then we can taper off the meds. At the end of all of this, I should only have to be on some baby aspirin, though I suspect my cardiologist might keep me on a small dose of bisoprolol (which I've been on for years, 2.5mg).
Everyone is here to provide moral support.
