Definitely polarizing. But I don't mind discussing mine. Open Heart surgery at age 11, for Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy All questions are fair game.
'Greatest Trauma' isn't what I'd call a great 'Hello!' but It would make a sweet metal song.
I think polarizing because it's a very personal question. There is no iffy response to this thread, in for a penny, in for a pound they say. And I think I'm doing reasonably well, with a few hiccoughs. In addition to the open heart I had my first pacemaker placed when I was 14, and had it replaced when I was 19. The one I have now is supposed to last me until I'm in my early-mid 30's, I'm 22 now. First, immediately after open heart surgery, everything sucks. They can give you all the morphine, and other fun chemicals they want when you wake up, but it's a 14 hour surgery, 10 of which you don't have a heartbeat, or lung function. You have tubes all sorts of places you didn't have tubes when they put you to sleep. And you can't move. That's so you don't go tearing out your stitches, tubes, leads and other things, but it still sucks.I won't try and describe the pain, because there is no adequate way to describe some of the sensations, and no polite way of describing others. The one that is the most inconvenient, and one of the most persistent ones, was the pain when coughing. If you coughed, it feels like your chest is going to burst. The sternum, once it's been bisected, is a bitch to heal, and that's without the wires holding it in place tugging at things. The only thing you can do for this is hug a pillow and wait for it to be over.
Day to day, I don't go on rollercoasters, I have a handicap parking pass for if I'm having a bad day, symptomatically, such as getting really winded, dizzy, or a migraine. I do some light exercise and walk/jog. I take a single beta-blocker to keep my heartrate and bp down.
The only really 'funny' thing I can think of from my time in the recovery ward (6 days) and my three months at home recuperating, would be when I accidentally got an adult dose (Adult ICU) of pain meds and drifted in and out of it for what felt like half a day. Edit* After writing this, I noticed I was kind of nervously rubbing my sternum, ick.