Don't underestimate the power of healing

Hi,
Sorry for the delayed entry but have been tracking a patient who I was lucky enough to see having his surgery and then his treatment when he came up onto the ward!!
I was fortunate enough to see pulmonary valve replacement surgery-watching most of the operation from a stool above the patient’s head!! The surgery took almost 3 hours and for me, the most amazing bits were starting the heart on bypass pump, stopping the heart and then re-starting it again!! All while watching the heart in full view amongst an open chest!! This surgery was performed on Thursday of last wk and the patient was out of ICU and up on the ward by Friday afternoon when we stood them up out of bed! He then continued to progress over the weekend and was discharged late yesterday afternoon after we had left. What has amazed me is that this person had their chest cut and sawed open and then retracted and then had their heart cut open and re-stitched back up and was then well enough to go home 5 days later!! This just goes to show that you should never underestimate the power of the body to heal itself. It did help that they had very minimal complications from the surgery but I was still amazed at how well this patient was doing on Monday when I arrived at prac. So from now on I suppose I will have a better appreciation for getting the patient up and about to reduce any chances of complications but also for how quickly the patient recovers and therefore treatment needs to be efficient from the very beginning!!