How to Help Someone After Bypass Surgery in the Hospital

Bypass surgery requires a lengthy recovery period. During that time, your loved one will need help and TLC. Providing care requires a basic understanding of what he or she needs after major surgery.

Difficulty: Moderately challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Antimicrobial Soap
• Surgical Masks

1. Visit the patient as much as you can unless she or her doctor advise you not to.

2. Help her with meals. The nurses will set the patient's tray up and get her started. Don't hover or fuss, but give her a hand if she needs it.

3. Help her walk. It's comforting for a patient to have a loving arm to lean against when she's strolling up and down the hall, gaining strength in her legs.

4. Encourage her to walk, cough and breathe deeply, and avoid stress, but be relaxed about it.

5. Avoid having lots of people in to visit unless the patient asks for them. Remember she's still in the midst of a major recovery. Limit visitors to only the most immediate family members. Leave the children at home if possible.

6. Encourage the patient to follow the instructions of her doctors and nurses. Let the patient complain, but don't take her side and tell her it's OK to skip her post-op activities when she feels like it.

7. Ask the doctors and nurses questions when there's something you don't understand. Have faith in the medical staff.

Tips & Warnings

• Visiting doesn't mean you must talk to the patient constantly or answer her phone or give her your opinion on every little thing. The most therapeutic way to visit for extended periods of time is to sit quietly, several paces from the patient's bed, and just be. The patient will feel safe and comforted having you nearby, but you'll be far enough away that she can take a catnap whenever she feels like it.
• If you or your immediate family members are sick with a cold, flu or sore throat, don't visit the patient unless you wear a surgical mask. The patient is using all her physical resources to recover from major surgery. It's unfair to ask her body to also fight off an infection that you or some other visitor has brought in. Ask the ICU nurse for a mask if you're feeling ill. Or stay at home and send another close relative to take your place.

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[Sun1021]

on 12/4/2008 My husband is coming home tomorrow, he has had a quad bypass, they have quite a bit of pain relievers, etc. I'm afraid that I won't be able to help him, I'm disabled, and can't do much on my own, I have a son who stays with us for now, how do we move him, he's 6'6,I don't want to cause any further pain. We have a recliner that with suit him well, it's big. I will make him do his walks, this will help both of us. But the fear of hurting him makes me feel sick in my stomach. How do you cope?