I had it done in August of last year for an ascending aortic aneurysm and dilated aortic root. It was an open heart surgery so it involves opening your chest. You'll probably be put on a heart-lung machine to circulate blood since the blood flow through your aorta at the site of the surgery has to be cutoff. I don't remember anything about the surgery itself but was sedated for a day afterwards and woke up in the cardiac ICU unit the next day. I thought it was still the same day of the surgery lol. So the sedation was pretty powerful.

You won't feel anything during the procedure since you'll receive general anesthesia. But when you wake-up you'll probably be intubated and have sternal wires and tubes in your chest to drain any excess fluid. My tubes were taken out about 2 days after surgery if I recall. I was also doing assisted walks up and down the hallway on day 2 after the surgery. Each individual is different so some may need more or less time before they recover enough to walk with assistance.

My surgery was 8/9 and I left the hospital on 8/15. I was admitted on 8/4 because the CT scan revealed the size of my aneurysm as 8.8 cm. My admission was the same day as the CT scan since it was in a critical size.

There will be some pain in the early recovery days depending on your tolerance since you will have just had your chest cut open. It took me 6 weeks after the surgery before I was cleared to drive again.