Would you have preferred they told you the intricacies of the procedure after it was done?
A lot of it did come after, to be fair. They're pretty good at telling you just enough that you feel like you "know" and getting you prepared because, ultimately, the reality is that open heart surgery comes with some big risks. But, at the same time, they're well versed in how they act and talk.
A lot of just how poorly he'd been and how complex the operation was didn't really get exposed until we started getting CC'd letters to the doctor and our local hospitals etc. The bleed in ICU was another example of that - they called us as soon as his blood pressure dropped and they were starting emergency surgery by the time we got there (Which was all of 5 minutes) but the liaison nurse did a very good job of calming us down and talking us through the surgery (We didn't see anything for obvious reasons, but she was able to peek through the screens and update us).
Then, when it's all over, you play it down and feel silly for panicking so much - until, again, you start to get the letters with phrases like "Emergency exploration after critically low cardiac output observed". Before that, every time we met a new person in outpatients they'd read his file and say "Ooh, he was very poorly in ICU wasn't he, bless him" and we're sat their thinking "Uh, I dunno - we kind of thought it was all under control!".
But, yeah, by that time you're home and dry so it has less of an impact. And, let's fact, what the fuck was I gonna do even if they do turn around and tell us we're in the shit. At that point you're very much in their hands.
EDITED: 29 Mar 2017 20:12 by PILOTDAN