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I had mitral valve repair where they stop your heart, go between your right ribs with small tools into your heart and sew a tensioning ring over the valve to tighten things up. So your entire upper chest is on fire for a little while.
The worst is the drain tube and pacer wires that goe in through your lower right chest and lays on top of your diaphragm to drain fluid from your chest cavity and run up to your heart in case they need to jump start it during your recovery.
After 4-5 days, every time you take a breath it feels like you are being stabbed at the bottom of your rib cage where your ribs come together. The tubes press on the back of your xyphoid process and you cant breathe. That's how the docs know it's time to take the drain out.
Anyway, they give your morphine to make the pain go away which lasts for about 15 min while they get the PA to come in and yank the tube out. 30 min later and you want to live again.
So that's how I know what 10 on the pain scale feels like.
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