Today is week twelve post-op for me – supposed to be the point where healing is just about complete. Of course, everyone is different so there are no absolutes, but in general, most recovery articles refer to the 12-week mark.

As for me, I am healed, but not healed. The incisions are fully healed, the sternum is definitely healed with the bone firmly knitted back together. But I still have pain in places; the artery harvest site on my arm still hurts at times. But the chest muscles still hurt, at least I assume it’s the muscles; it could also be ligaments or tendons that were stretched or torn during the alien chest opening they performed. I have tried to run – well, jog – a few times and it is painful to my chest, not the heart, but the structural part of my thorax itself. It gets better every day but is still not fully healed.

None of that has really impacted me in my rehab; I do what I think and feel is the best for me and I allow some measure of pain to creep in, but not so much as to indicate I am hurting myself. I have picked up the grandkids countless times over the last month or so with no ill effect. I have split wood as well – that hurt, but only afterwards and only in the shoulders. And I’ve hiked – a lot. I am now up to ten hikes for a total of 90 trail miles; the longest was just under 14 miles. So I am doing OK.

But the whole event has rattled my world: mortality has become very real to me. Not that I was naïve enough to not realize that before, but I never really looked it in the eyes. I’ve had “stuff” over the years, but not this kind of stuff. Lyme disease a few times, but never life threatening. I had a couple of prostate scares with skyrocketing PSA values, but a biopsy and MRI have dispelled any serious health concerns with that. Even the kidney lesions seem to back-burner annoyances. No, nothing compares to this.

Perhaps I shouldn’t have, but I Googled life expectancy after a quadruple bypass and the answer is pretty specific – 18 years. Some live longer depending on a lot of things, but 18 is the number. And that’s not horrible for me; I am 68 so that would be 86 years old – enough to call it a “good run”. But it is still sobering to have a number placed on your life. I mean, maybe 93 wouldn’t have been a bad age to go either, depending on the quality of your life at the time.

My direction here today is that this idea of “healed” becomes more than a physical reference. Every recovery article I’ve read talked about the emotional side of the surgery – depression, lack of energy, sadness, even crying. I had none of that; I did have frustration, impatience, lack of patience (they are not the same thing), and self-disappointment. But no depression or sadness. I still don’t by the way, if you think that’s where this is going. But I am recognizing that I could have died at any moment in the six months leading up to the surgery. And beyond that, I am certainly recognizing that I am going to die, sooner rather than later. (Pulling really hard for later!)

I’ve written about how security is little more than a state of mind, self-contrived. I am seeing that more clearly than ever from this cardio-cation of mine. I read the report from my coronary scan, understood and believed the results, yet was still of the thought that even though the data clearly indicated a problem, it was a minor issue – a bothersome annoyance – than anything to be concerned over. It affected me enough to immediately ask my doctor to call in a statin prescription for my cholesterol, but not enough to scare me.

So when I went for the stress test, I had no real worries. I had hiked almost 29 miles in the past week, and the day before, had worked like a maniac clearing brush on a hot humid day. No ill effect so no worries. And on the rare chance there was a problem, I figured I might need a stent in worst artery – a day or two in the hospital at some point over the summer and back at it again. And during the test I was firmly convinced I was doing great… until they stopped the test with their eyes wide with concern. I was not doing great it turns out. And that began the two-weeks of almost nonstop surrealism; it just kept going from bad to worse. Never saw it coming.

And in a way, I guess I still fully don’t. Every time one of the stupid alarms would go off on my 24/7 electronic monitoring, I would cringe, but not because I thought “this is it”; rather, I would cringe because I believed whatever it was would surely delay my getting out of the hospital by another day.

When I finally came home, my wife had put a lot of thought into how and where I’d sleep because there was no way I could do our bed yet. And the second or third thing I did in those first 15 minutes was to go prove to myself that I could get in and out of the bed without stroking out (it is quite high).

I hopped back on board the “physical love” train long before the various articles said was appropriate. In fact, it is rather common for men to be both unable and unwilling to resume physical relations out of fear of having a heart attack. And of course on top of that, the physical effort of it can be painful on the incision sites, especially early on.

As soon as I was able to walk outside, I did so, frustrated that I couldn’t walk farther. Of course the main reason I couldn’t walk farther was that the visiting nurse told my wife I should not be allowed to walk outside alone, even in my own yard. But happily within the first week my GP told my wife it was OK for me to be outside alone, and in fact, OK to go a little farther as in down the road. But it was not fear of pushing too hard and dying that held me back, it was fear of my wife and the visiting nurse!

And when I began developing the irregular heartbeat, which turned out to be benign PVC’s, it did not make me worry or be scared “something” was going on that might lead to the “big one”. Because security is a state of mind and mine has been well conceived.

The first hike was another fear for my wife, that the strain of hiking would harm me. Even my GP insisted that I hike with a group of people for safety, should something happen. So my first “hike” was in a local park. Yes I was alone, but convinced my wife that since there are always a lot of people there and that it is so close to a number of homes that I’d be fine should “anything” happen. And I knew nothing would happen – and nothing did happen.

You must be shaking your head right about now dear reader! I open this with the statement that I have been rattled by all this, then go on to write several paragraphs on how I wasn’t afraid of one thing or another once I got home. Well, there is room for duality. I was not afraid or worried of having a stroke or heart attack after the surgery because I firmly believe that the problem was completely and successfully repaired. I am fixed. So time to move on! It is why I’ve pushed myself so hard in my rehab, time to get strong again. And what a perfect time to do so now that my heart’s blood supply is better than it’s been in years. Recall (if you’ve read my previous posts) that my heart is not the problem; all of the echocardiograms and X-rays and ultrasounds all indicated a normal healthy heart. The issue was the arteries feeding my heart. And that is why I wasn’t worried about having the surgery or about pushing myself afterwards.

What I am facing though, is the realization that the fix is not permanent. We all die of something – death is, after all, inevitable. But it floats around out the in the fog of distant possibilities, shadows in a mist of maybes. But having a quadruple bypass has cast a bright light into the murkiness and has provided a reason for me to pin fear upon. I have a likely cause and a approximate time frame. I think I was at least in reasonable shape – for my age anyway – before all this. And I expect to be in even better shape as time goes on; I am walking more than ever before, I am eating better than ever before, and I am under the care of an excellent doctor. And in less than two weeks I expect to be under the care of an excellent cardiologist. So I hold hope that while there is an approximate number, my personal number may be now skewed on the timeline to the better!

Just a quick update with which to wrap this up and get it posted. I had an awesome hike this past weekend: 15.5 miles with some really great split times. And it was not an easy hike with over 1300’ of elevation – it was a workout and I felt really good throughout. To date, since surgery, I am at 230 miles, consisting of 105 miles hiking on trails and 125 miles road walking. I am trying my best to be in the best shape possible when I finally see my cardiologist one week from today. Stay well read reader!!