Here is the rest of my journey.
This
is my first try at writing since my surgery three months ago. I hope that I can
still put down on paper what is floating around in my mind and make it somewhat
understandable.
What
most people don’t realize, open-heart surgery can affect your brain and thought
process, especially so with me since I had a surprise for my Surgeon. They
opened me up and “surprise” found a very large aneurism close to the heart
valve that was the original reason for my surgery.
Changing
horses in midstream is not something doctors or cowboys enjoy. The
anesthesiologist had to increase the poison that keeps you hovering somewhere between
sleep and death (this stuff stays with you a long time). My hero Dr. K
had to harvest more vein from between my knee and groin (what fun it was
to remove that stuff they put on that wound).
Then
they went about shutting off my heart and putting me on a heart-lung machine
(am I now officially a robot). Replacing
my heart valve took some time and fixing the aneurism took longer, so I was
doing the robot thing for more time than Dr. K had planed, but what did I know,
I was watching a bright light.
Connie
said when I came out of surgery they had a hard time waking me up (better part
of a day). This is what caused my “fuzzy
brain”, it is still with me, more on that later.
It
took me about two days before I realized they were not “out to get me”. It was
very weird, I thought everything around me was fake, nothing was real; someone
was trying to trick me. I had to pee and tried getting out of bed, to my horror
I could not and alarms were going off and someone said “stop fighting and just
lay back”; easy for her to say.
Then
she (female voice) unhooked most of my tubing (still part robot) and hands
grabbed me, lifting me upright. I can sit, wow! This nurse seemed real to me,
she asked me question after question, when she was satisfied with my answers,
more hands came and helped me get into a wheel chair. She rolled me into what I
can best describe as a very large shower.
This
is when more reality crept into my mind. This nurse was a very cute young lady;
she was taking off my hospital gown, very strange. She turned on the water and
started to very carefully wash me from head to toe, very thoroughly,
everywhere. Yes; very, very carefully, everywhere. She dried me off. She was
asking me more questions the whole time; I guess she was making sure I was
still on the same planet. I wasn’t sure. I do remember wondering if she were
going to take her cloths off, it would only be fair; I was naked.
Back
in bed sleep came easily; I was worn out! I awoke wondering where Connie was;
it wasn’t long before I heard her voice as she rounded the corner into my room.
I heard angels singing, I have never been happier to see her smiling face; at
that moment I knew I was going to make it.
The
pain throbbing in my chest helped to bring me the rest of the way to reality. I
was still hooked up to various bags and monitors. I was then introduced to my
constant companion and savior, the pillow! Any time I had to cough or sneeze I
would squeeze the pillow against my chest. Without that pillow, I would
experience severe pain (One time I suddenly sneezed without hugging the pillow,
I thought sure my chest had exploded and was laying at my feet) and could possibly
damage my breastbone. It was severed by the surgeon and then sewn back together
with stainless steel wire, the skin over that was stitched and glued together.
The
nurses showed me how to get up and out of the bed (I used to think it was
easy), then came walking; a few steps at first, then once around the nurses
station, what a triumph!
Finally
I was back home. My son Bryan had taken two weeks off to help Connie while I
was in the land of Oz; he was a great help to both of us. Once I argued with
him about my doing some task, he looked at me and quoted the famous line from
the movie Captain Phillips, “Look at me, look at me, I am the captain now.” I
wanted to laugh but it hurt; love that kid.
Back
to my “fuzzy brain” issue. Our house in festival is a single story, no
basement. Connie asked me why I didn’t use the master bath, I told her I didn’t
want to go downstairs, it was dark down there. My brain was a little scrambled..,no,
a lot scrambled.
I
was looking forward to sleeping in my own bed, but it was not to be. Even with
a step stool it was too painful getting into and out of. I lived in my recliner for about a week, when
I was finally able to get into and sleep in my bed, it felt like heaven, even
though I had to sleep on my back. I was on no schedule; I slept a lot and
watched tv into the wee hours of the night.
Connie
washed my back and legs when I showered; I asked if she wanted to get naked, no
luck. She also put on my special stockings, which was hard to do.
I
went to physical therapy three times a week for two months before we took off
for the summer. The Doctor said it would be about a year before I totally
returned to normalcy. As a parting shot he said, “You should be fine, just stay
below 9,000 feet.” Drat, we are spending
the summer in Colorado where everything is high.
