Hypothetically, that is.

  • medgremlin@midwest.social
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    6 days ago

    I would wager that it’s more to do with the surgery itself. Even transient hypoxia from blood not getting to your brain for a little bit can make a big difference. Anesthesia is used very frequently with rare complications, but complex heart surgeries have higher complication rates.

    • Dizzy Devil Ducky@lemm.ee
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      6 days ago

      Sounds fair enough that it could have just been the surgery. I’m nowhere near a medical professional, but I can totally see unforseen complications having happened to me.

      • medgremlin@midwest.social
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        5 days ago

        Brains are very finicky things and they get very upset if there’s any disruption in their supply of glucose and oxygen, but anesthetics are carefully selected to not disrupt that as much as possible. Anesthesia might paralyze the muscles you use to breathe, but that’s what the intubation and ventilator is for. The anesthetics we use don’t affect the heart muscle because it uses different ions and chemicals than every other type of muscle in the body to generate contractions. However, open heart surgery will absolutely mess with the heart which will disrupt circulation.