How long for a quadruple bypass? (roughly)

Factual Questions
1

My girlfriend’s sister-in-law went in for one this morning about 8:00. When should we expect to hear something?

(We’re a couple of hours away, not pacing back and forth in the waiting room, FWIW.)

2

for my MIL 5 hours.

Good Luck!!

3

IANAD.

It was a full day for Mom. When my mother went in for hers, it was particularly complicated due to being unable to find a suitable portion of vein for the bypass. She’s diabetic. She was 48 at the time of surgery (October 2002).

Going in a 8:00am doesn’t necessarily mean that she was on the operating table by 8:00am. IIRC, the actual procedure was about 4-6 hours. Someone would come out and update us every hour or so.

The surgery was emotionally tough, but once that was done, it was worse seeing Mom looking as gray as E.T. in the oxygen tent.

4

Yeah, tell your girlfriend that no matter what they tell you about how bad the patient is going to look afterwards, you are not going to be prepared for it. I’ll never forget how dead my dad looked.

This was more than fifteen years ago, so it may be different now, but the actual operation took about five hours for him. However, he “went in” at whatever in the morning but the actual operation didn’t start for at least an hour, maybe more.

5

Sorry, I should have made clear that I was aware that the time you “go in” isn’t when they start cutting* and that I was looking for a rough estimate of overall “when we’d hear something” proportions.

Thanks, all, and I’ll pass the word on about post-op physiognomy on so she can warn her family.

  • I had surgery on my vocal cords last year and couldn’t believe how long prep took. Much longer than it took for my vasectomy, and for that they had to shave me! Delicately!
6

You might want to keep in mind that the doctors may make some decisions that weren’t part of the original plan during the operation. My Dad went in for a double bypass and came out with a septuple.

He always was an overachiever.

Edit: To actually answer your question, he was in for about 5 or 6 hours.

7

It varies all over the place, so many factors. My husband had bypasses about 15 years ago. He was taken in to surgery in early to mid-afternoon, and was in the recovery room by 6 pm. And home in 3 days. He was not yet 50 and except for this one annoying near-total blockage in the main coronary artery was in excellent health.

8

My dad’s took 6-7 hrs, but a chunk of that was in recovery after that. The hospital had a waiting room where staff would call in with updates.

I’m also going to second the “be prepared for how dead she will look after”. A nurse was kind enough to warn us before we went into ICU, but it was still a shock.

9

Did everything turn out okay?

10

Holy crap, I thought it was for you. :whew:

Best of luck.

11

I went in for a triple, they discovered another blockage on the operating table, and I ended up with a quadruple. Four and a half hours, Barb says. (Remember the patient will be under with morphine for some time after the operation; it’s painful.)

12

Assuming both of these were aimed at me:

Zsofia: yes, last I heard everything went fine and the patient is in recovery.

Anaamika: You’re too sweet. Sorry for the scare!