Dear reader, I am sorry about the length of this. As I alluded to in my last post, there is a lot going on and leading the way is the one-year anniversary of the “two weeks from hell” (actually two months to be honest) and I am wrestling with all sorts of odd emotions with it.
For one, I have survivor’s guilt – so many of my friends just suddenly dropped dead from the exact same thing that I had only because they weren’t lucky enough to have it found and fixed first…. But I was and others weren’t and that is bothering me. Not that I’d want the alternative of course!!
I’ve also spent a lot of time reflecting on how close I actually came – I was on a sort of death-watch in both Kent and Women’s as they worked hard to keep me from having the big one before they could fix me. And I think back on the hikes in the weeks prior to it all and I just shake my head…. I was just ever so close to a trail death – and it’s messing with me!
Health, for obvious reasons, has become a close to the heart (pun intended) subject for me. I try really hard – truthfully work really hard – at trying to maintain and if possible, improve my health. And to still live an enjoyable life at the same time. I am likely in my last 20 years or less so I need there to be some quality of life – like beer….I’m not giving up beer! I won’t overindulge but won’t give it up I have a couple of beers when we go out to eat once or twice a week and I rarely have any at home – maybe one if I am grilling for a party like at Halloween, so not too much but I just can’t give it up.
I had always relied on hiking for my fitness in the past; an incredibly strenuous activity that typically consumes four to six hours nonstop. I tried to get out at least once a week often getting out twice a week. But I did not do much in between the hikes. I managed 30 hikes in 2023 for 353 miles. In 2024 I hiked 49 times for 517 miles and that was with no hikes the last half of June, none in July, and damned little in August. Not bad, but it wasn’t enough.
After learning that the hard way, I spent a lot of time researching cardio fitness – after all I had plenty of spare time to do so! I found that while an intense workout like a hike is really good, once or twice a week just doesn’t cut it; you need to exercise your heart daily. And it doesn’t take a lot – you don’t need four or six hours – a simple hour-long walk once a day will be more than enough. Now while the term “walk” will likely conjure up different ideas on what that means for different people, so a definition is in order. A walk means walking at a decent pace – a pace that stretches you, that makes you breath a little heavy, and that elevates your heartrate at least into Zone 3 which is the aerobic zone, which is 70% to 80% of my maximum heartrate. At my age that means 106-122 bpm.
Put another way, for the average human, a decent walking speed is 3MPH (which equates to one mile every twenty minutes) and results in walking 3 miles in one hour. However, they recommend a pace better than 3.4MPH for cardi fitness. And to be honest, 20-minute miles is my goal for myself when I hike; so for walking on an asphalt road I aim for 4MPH – 15-minute miles. And at times I actually dip into a 14-minute/mile pace.
When I was finally out of the hospital and back at home on the mend, I tried to walk a lot. At first in the house, and then outside in the yard. My visiting nurse did not want me outside alone but I got permission from my GP to do so. Around my 3rd week home, 4th week post-op, I made my first foray out of the yard and onto the streets. It was a mile and a half and it took me 40-minutes! This a was big deal to me!! It was good for my heart and lungs of course, but also my mind and my spirit.
And while my walking frequency has varied according to both life and weather, I am still addicted to my walks. I quickly developed a loop that measured 4 miles which was ideal in that when walking at a slower pace I got a good duration workout and once I got fit enough to hit 4MPH I was still getting a full one hour walk, which is the target. I have developed other loops and also come up with some add-ons so I have a number of walks that range from a flat four miles up to over nine miles.
My walks help, especially given the fact that I can get almost as much cardio exercise as a hike, but without the travel time; more quickly too as it allows a faster pace than hiking does. So, I get much of the same cardio benefits in a fraction of the time. Of course, I miss the peace and quiet of the woods terribly. While there are a huge number of places with great natural beauty where I walk, having cars whiz by you inches away at 40-50mph sort of ruins it at times!
I’ve added both resistance exercise and actual weights to my routine; from what I’ve read both are critical to overall fitness. I would love to do some yoga but just can’t seem to figure out how to do that…but I think it offers great benefits. All that aside, the goal is to improve obviously. But at this age so many things begin to go that you’re lucky if you can even maintain.
I still have pain from where they split me open, mostly the left side muscles (which are disrupted to a far greater extent during surgery than the right side). There are also nerves that were cut that a slowly regenerating resulting in spots of numbness, hypersensitivity, and some combination of both. I think that some of the wires that were used to bind my sternum together are actually beginning to pop up from the bone. (Or I am turning into a stegosaurus!) My cholesterol numbers remain really great and my blood pressure has been really great as well. My heart seems really strong as well (although I thought it was before and look where that got me!)
I suffered a long stretch of irregular heartbeat episodes almost immediately post-op right through the end of the year and even into this year; nothing remarkable or of concern, just a nuisance, but those episodes have pretty much all gone away. I have no reason to believe that it has fully healed and is happy and healthy.
Heart aside, I still have the lesions on my kidney; as there has been little to no change in them I have sort of relegated this issue to my farthest backburner and I don’t have much concern right now. I continue to have all kinds of trouble with my prostate. My PSA continues to go up and then down, seemingly randomly with no rhyme or reason. I guess as long as it keeps going back down I can relax to some extent as my doctor told me that while a major increase in PSA can often mean cancer, a reversal of my PSA value is a positive as the PSA does not go back down once elevated if it is due to cancer. But that doesn’t mean I am not bothered! What’s worse though, are the physical issues that come with an enlarged prostate. I get sudden urges to urinate – severe urges sometimes – yet when I go relieve it, there really isn’t much there. In fact, sometimes going is just not possible and for a few moments you are terrified because you feel like you might wet yourself and then suddenly the urge goes away and may not return for another hour or so.
Not too long ago – last year I think – I would often sleep through the night without having to get up to pee; now there are many nights that I can’t sleep through the night without having to get up. There is almost never a strong stream either, always weak and God help me if I’m in a hurry because my pee sure isn’t! It almost seems that the longer and harder I hold off – whether because I am sleeping or because I am driving and just can’t stop – that once I do go, it can take forever to finally “start the process”. I suspect that the full bladder, which is already constricted by the enlarged prostate, becomes even more compressed as it presses into the prostate and which then makes starting a stream even more difficult. I am sorry if this is too much information for some readers but my hope is that someone reading this is, or will be, going through something similar and my experience may help them.
I know there are things that can be done to alleviate the issues with my bladder and prostate but I have not pursued them yet; I might at my next appointment though because it is beginning to have an ever-larger impact on the quality of my life. I find my self trying to manage my urine by limiting how much, and when, I drink fluids so as to not impact an activity planned for later. For example if I am going to the movies in the afternoon, I will have a small amount of black coffee in the morning and probably nothing else until after the movie just so I have a chance at sitting through the entire movie. Sometimes it can interrupt my daily walk, especially if I am doing six or eight miles which is an hour and half give or take.
I have not looked into options because I am still strong and capable and healthy sexually and many treatments for an enlarged prostate can result in a diminishment or even loss of a sex life (TMI again, sorry). But like everything else in life there has to be balance and currently I am losing some balance with the problem so I guess it is time to begin seeking options to make life easier. More to come.
As I indicated at the start, the one-year anniversary of the two-week cardiocation is pretty much here. Today is Father’s Day and this same day last year, I was two days from being hospitalized (much to my surprise). So Tuesday will mark the stress test that is now indelibly seared into my memory. And little did I know that it was only the beginning!! What a wild ride it was, it was like a roller coaster only kind of the opposite. The first drop, the initial downhill, on every roller coaster is the biggest; after that they get smaller and smaller. This is because the cars need enough energy to complete the full circuit and throwing a climb larger than the initial drop would end the ride right there – the cars would stall out due to inadequate speed and energy.
In my case, the first drop was a shocker – never expected to fail the stress test and certainly never expected an immediate hospitalization. But turned out that that was just the little hill; next came a catheterization – which failed due to the size and number of blockages. Then an even bigger drop – transfer to Boston for triple bypass open heart surgery! And the final coup de gras was a quadruple bypass instead of a triple. Although truth be told single, double, triple, or whatever….they’re all equal in terms of severity! So my ride – our ride – went from wow to double-wow to damn to come on, you’ve got to be kiddin’ me! So much so that my wife says she has PTSD and as the anniversary approaches she is getting increasingly anxious.
The funny, as in odd, thing is that I don’t think I ever felt overwhelmed throughout the whole two weeks. Frustrated, impatient, disbelieving, bewildered, and shocked even, but never overwhelmed. Nor did I experience any doubt or fear that I recall. I was nervous about the surgery: the breathing tube, the Foley’s catheter, and the post-op pain. Fortunately I knew nothing about the chest drains or they would’ve been my top worry! But I did not consider any notion that I might not survive the surgery (or that I might not make it to the table before that tiny opening letting the blood into my heart decided to close up first).
I remember talking to someone before surgery and going over all the things one must go over beforehand – risks and the like. So we talked about all the things that they would do to me, including that they would be stopping my heart for a couple of hours in order to operate on it and we got to the point of “what if”. He asked what my wished were should my heart stop, or fail to start, during surgery. Basically the “do you want to be resuscitated or not and if so, how hard should we try” question. I paused and then told him if it’s my time to go, it’s my time to go and to let me go. He gasped almost audibly and look up at me with wide eyes: “are you sure” he asked, “you don’t want to be revived?” I laughed and said “I’m kidding – I want you to go into the parking lot and pull the battery out of my truck to use on my heart to get it going if you have to.”
Probably not the best time to joke around but it reflects how comfortable with it all I was in that moment. I am not advocating that I am some fearless guy or anything, only that I somehow knew this was not the time I needed to fear or worry about; this was just another thing I had to go through in my journey here – not the end of it, only a momentary pause.
But one of the things I am agonizing over now, in hindsight, is that I treated it all so frivolously. I probably should have scrambled to write out some sort of a will. I should have taken the time to tell each and every person that I love how much I love them and how appreciative I am that they are part of my life. I should have had special words for my wife and daughter as they wheeled me out for the surgery in case that they ended up being my last words. I did none of that. And damn – what if my belief that all would be fine was misplaced? Looking back it seems like a huge gamble.
This is probably a little self-deprecating to say, but I have always been a bit of a passenger in life, sort of a dry brown leaf floating along at the beck and will of the stream. Of course that sort of makes sense as a child, you go where life – and your parents – takes you. But once I grew up, I wanted to marry Teri and really didn’t have any other goals or objectives. Life took me to Cranston Print Works as a 3rd shift color mixer to Electric Boat as a 2nd shift grinder. And from there, I’d find myself in this new job or that new role, sometimes with no idea how I got there. I have a picture of myself taken at a symposium in Tampa for manufacturing excellence; it is our EB team, eight or ten of us, and the look on my face is so very much like a Chevy Chase “where am I and how did I get here…?”
Well the whole two-week cardiocation was just that – I was a leaf just going along for the ride. Oh – I have to go to the ER? OK. Oh, go to Boston for bypass surgery? OK. I’d look around the room or stare out the window and feel like a passenger checking out the scenery on a trip – a really bizarre trip! Like…oh, look…another IV! I had IV’s in me every single day from the initial arrival at Kent after the stress test right up to minutes before being released two full weeks later; IV’s and those damned EKG patches and wires!!
Anyway, it was one year ago today that I had that stress test that started it all. It was the Tuesday after Father’s Day and I had no reason to consider that I might not be going home from it, even in my wildest dreams. I had hiked over 14 miles Saturday, cook out Sunday, and worked hard in the yard on Monday and this stress test was just a pit stop for the list of things I planned for the day. I assumed I would ace it – for a man my age anyway. I had researched it thoroughly, I knew the target heartbeat for my age group, and counted it down as the monitor in front of me approached it. But they all seemed to be interested in something else with two, then three, then four people huddled around the monitor and paper chart feed.
Then it all stopped. And from there I became a bystander for what would turn into two weeks.
They sat me down, placed a nitroglycerine pill under my tongue, and peppered me with questions: “does your chest hurt, how do you feel,” and so forth. I figured things were bad when the cardiologist told me he wanted to call an ambulance to take me to the Kent Hospital ER. Eventually we compromised and based upon current EKG, BP, and other vitals, he permitted me to drive myself – he’d call ahead so they’d be waiting for my arrival – to “expedite” things. He felt I needed a stent placed – that very day if possible. He gave me the paper EKG strip to show the when I got there…ominous.
I was stunned. This wasn’t happening…couldn’t be.
I debated with driving home first to tell my wife in person but 1) I knew what a shitshow that would be and 2) he impressed a grave sense of urgency on me and I can be quite dumb but I am not stupid. So I pointed the truck north to the ER and phoned her instead, giving my all into downplaying the whole thing so she wouldn’t worry (didn’t work).
They flew me through triage with a rapid EKG and bloodwork. I was then parked on a gurney, literally in a hallway of the ER. And there I sat for the longest time. I eventually got moved into a small “private” room, like an exam room, with “Quarantine Room” on the door. Huh? They hooked me up to an IV and an EKG and there I stayed for hours. Couldn’t go anywhere, had to pee but no bathroom and I couldn’t walk away from the EKG and IV anyway so I had to wait for a nurse to pop in to check on me and get unhooked to go. I forget the exact time, but around 11PM I got rolled into a curtained exam room in the ER directly in line with the entrance. And around 1AM I was moved to a room. Oh yeah, no food or water because they all believed I would be getting a cardio catheter in the morning.
As it turned out, there was no catheter for me Wednesday because it was Juneteenth and the catheter lab is no open on Juneteenth. Seriously? So I was allowed to eat Wednesday up until dinner, then back on no food or water with the expectation of the catheter Thursday.
Thursday was a morning of waiting and wondering until finally around noon when they said no catheter today: they’re too backed up. So they released my no food no drink order and I had lunch. I was literally just crumbling up my lunch napkin when a nurse popped in the door to say “we’re taking you to the cath lab in a minute…” And then she saw the lunch tray and said “Oh, you ate.” And turned around and left. I was livid! It turned out that they brought someone in just to do me, but never notified my floor nurse. So another day wasted, waiting for this “magic bullet” that would get me out of there. Now, Friday would be the day, without a doubt.
Moving on with this – today is the 21st and it is the day I got the catheter a year ago. I was so excited to go down and get it done so I could go home. And just a short while later, despite the haziness of the drugs, I can still here him exclaim, “no catheter for this guy”. Once I was fully awake and cobweb free in recovery afterwards I asked the nurse about the outcome and she sent the doctor over. He explained – with a diagram – that I was definitely not a candidate for a stent: too many blockages, a couple of which were too severe. He said I would have to have open heart surgery – a triple bypass – and I could opt for RI Hospital or Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. I debated with RI Hospital so it would be easier for my wife to come see me, but he “strongly” advised me that Boston was where I should go. And so it was.
Of course, I then had to lay there in recovery for close to an hour before they sent me back to my room. To my room where my wife was waiting to hear how it went and when I could go home. Hah! Instead I was going to have to tell her I was headed to Boston for open heart surgery. And let me tell you that it was a horrible half hour when that conversation took place….That was a Thursday and as it turned out it would take until Sunday for them to find me a bed in Boston. So there was a lot of time to digest the news and try to figure things out for my wife and daughter. But it also made it difficult to book a hotel because we didn’t know until that Sunday that it was the day I was heading north.
I’ve been writing this looking back a year and trying to write something about the significant days. In the interim, we took a trip to Salem Mass. A long favored vacation destination for us, it was especially nice to be there on the one year anniversary of the hell-week at Kent and the ultimate catheter failure; such a better way to spend those days!! I find it a little difficult with how to mark the days. Since it was a year ago, it feels easier to mark the anniversary of the stress test as on Tuesday. But since the dates move each year, the test was on Tuesday June 18 and this year Tuesday was the 17th. So do I pick the day or the date? While I have been sort of focusing on the day, ultimately, I will go with the date.
Anyway, Salem was as lovely as always. The weather was great. We walked, we shopped, and we ate (a lot). We also took the one-hour trolley tour and it was worth every penny; an easy way to see much more of the city than we normally see on foot and with a knowledgeable guide spouting all sorts of historical facts the entire time! If ever there were a tale of two cities, it is Salem. The city is steeped in history – so much history going back to 1626. People such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (the writer) and Thomas Watson (Alexander Graham Bell’s valued assistant) to name a few. The buildings and architecture are absolutely staggering in their grandeur and elegance. There are number of the United States “firsts” or “oldest existing” buildings and businesses there as well. The depth of the history there is incredible.
But Salem is generally not known for its history; instead people know it, and visit it, because of its storied past with witches with the Salem Witch Trials leading the way in 1692. It is a horrific and terribly sad history and one that Salem tried to hide and forget. But in the 1970’s they began to see their past as a means to their future. The hugely successful TV show Bewitched filmed in Salem and that ignited a wild interest in the city and its history with witches.
So they embraced the idea and began to tout themselves as the Witch City and in 1982 held their first Haunted Happenings festival and the rest, as they say, is history. People come year-round to visit the cemetery and all the sites connected to the 1692 horrors. There are dozens of haunted attractions, haunted tours, witch museums, etc., all geared towards the tourists. They stage the witch trials in full costume, accosting alleged witches in the town square and dragging them off to trial and subsequent punishment.
Once again, after a pause, moving on with this. I went for a hike today – it was over 90-degrees and muggy and I ended up absolutely soaked from sweat, but a really great hike none the less. Ended up at 9.5 miles, less than I usually like but adequate given the extreme conditions. As I hiked, I continues to reflect on my two weeks from hell last year. By this point (Monday June 23) I had been transferred to Boston via ambulance; IV’s and EKG and all. The transfer was on this date, but was a Sunday, and again I struggle with the way to commemorate the right day vs date. I had been in Kent Hospital since Tuesday and similar to our current weather now, we were in a hot stretch then as well. And as I gazed out my window I longed to escape my bed and the AC and just have five minutes in the hot sun. Well, when the ambulance parked at the dock outside Brigham and Women’s, I got my chance, sort of. The unloading dock was long – long enough for well over a dozen ambulances and we were at the far end – so I had to be wheeled the entire length of it. It was late evening, probably around 7PM or so, but the heat of the day was obvious and I relished in it for the few minutes it took to wheel me back into the air-conditioned atmosphere of the massive hospital.
I recall being overwhelmed with the size of my room; and of the view – it was really cool. What was not cool was the fact that I had not showered since the previous Monday night. And don’t forget that I did the treadmill Tuesday which started this whole thing, so I was ready! But they had me on lock-down every minute: I was hooked to an IV and EKG 24/7 and I was not allowed to wander the hallways; and was not allowed to shower. Apparently, I was on the “could go into arrest at any time” list so they kept me on a short leash.
But when I had been fully “received” into their care at B&W, I asked about a shower and was promised one on Monday, the next day. True to their word they rigged me up so I could shower with my IV; and it was awesome!! And as it turned out, that would be my last shower until the following Tuesday at discharge. That first full day at B&W was also filled with echocardiograms, some other heart scans, X-rays, and endless bloodwork. And the fun was only beginning.
Well this is Wednesday June 25, the day before my one-year anniversary. The surgery was on Wednesday last year, so at this time last year I was on the table, probably getting split and prepared for the heart/lung bypass.
My son had come down from Maine to see me the day before. Unfortunately I had just received an experimental IV of iron, part of a national study that is examining the possible potential of infusing a heart patient with iron prior to surgery in order to expedite healing and shorten recovery time. Apparently a great deal of iron shows up in the blood stream after being on a heart-lung bypass, and apparently the body has some difficulty in processing or handling that excess iron. So I agreed to take part in the study and receive the IV, not knowing if it was the real deal or a placebo.
Turned out to be real because I reacted, fairly substantially, to the IV. First my left hand, then my right, then my left foot, then my right, began to swell – a LOT. So much that it took a concerted effort of two of use to get my wedding ring off my finger. At this point my room turned to chaos as nurses and doctors scrambled to figure out what was happening. And it was at this point that my poor son arrived – right in the midst of the swarm of medical people running around and taking vitals. He handled it well, not surprisingly because he is a grounded level-headed man. But still scary for him and I hated him having to see me in such a state. Happily it passed rapidly and they later determined that this is one of the possible side effects of the iron treatment. I was concerned it was delay my surgery which was scheduled for the morning, but it did not.
My wife and daughter somehow made it to see me that afternoon as well. Originally surgery had been planned for Thursday, but my surgeon decided to move it to Wednesday. My wife and daughter had planned on coming up Wednesday so they could see me before surgery that night and hopefully, in the morning as well. But the change in the day meant that they had to scramble to get packed, get my wife, daughter, son in law, and their two kids (Charlotte was only nine months old) and get up to Boston – and find a hotel for the night. They had reservations for Wednesday night, but nothing for Tuesday night. Happily, they were able to find a single room for the one night and I got to see them as well before surgery. (We were unsure when I’d be sent down for surgery and how early they’d be allowed in, so there was some doubt that we’d see each other that morning).
And today is that day – the one-year anniversary of the surgery. I had a reservation to go skydiving this morning but it was cancelled due to rain and the low ceiling; I’ll have to reschedule for a day next week. I thought about how to commemorate that day and to me, skydiving was the most extreme opposite of lying on a table for nine hours with your heart stopped for two of those hours. Once they cancelled, I thought about going for a hike but ended up going for a street walk instead – a good one though – 9.6 miles and a r4eally good pace too: 15:07 per mile with a couple of miles in the mid-14-minute range.
As a special surprise bonus to the day, my Maine clan came down to spend a couple of days here and tonight, my house is filled with screams and laughter and joy. I am a lucky man indeed!
A year ago today I was back in my room by midday. I was awakened at 5AM for that horrible first stand up after the surgery. I was not at all sure I agreed with their assessment that it was fine for me to stand up but they seemed pretty certain that it was something I needed to do so…we did – we stood me up so I could get weighed. I got really dizzy and lightheaded so the standing didn’t last long at all. And not wanting to split myself open again, I desperately wanted to avoid something as strenuous and energetic as vomiting, I fought with every fiber of my body to avoid it. The nurse came running over with a plastic tub for me saying he recognized that “puke is coming” face I was making, and I was happy to disappoint!
There was the usual bloodwork and vitals and some other stuff I either don’t remember or didn’t understand what they were doing. I know the Foley catheter was removed – I was very nervous when I heard her tell the other nurse she was going to remove it because I’ve never had one and had no idea how uncomfortable it might be (it wasn’t bad). I don’t think I ate anything but I had some sort of drink I believe. I just really wanted to fast forward to the next day – I was just so uncomfortable. But I was thrilled to hear them say I was getting out of ICU and going back to a regular room; the competitive side of me kicked in. They had told me earlier that I could expect to spend one or two days in the ICU and here I was getting out on my first day!
Today’s reflection of a year ago is walking the hallway to begin cardio rehabilitation, get the lungs working again, get the muscles working, and all those fun things that require a “restart” after such a major surgery. It was awkward and uncomfortable but necessary. At this point I just wanted to go home; enough hospital time – surgery is done – let’s check out. But I still had several more days yet to stay and knowing that was frustrating. Most of what I recall is constant discomfort and occasional pain, which they managed with meds. I am not a big fan of prescription pain-killers so I only took the oxycodone when it was really bad.
Somewhere through here they removed my main line, which is an IV in the neck. They also removed the wires coming out of chest; apparently, they insert two wires to a key part of the heart so if the heart begins to behave erratically, they can use the wires to deliver an electrical charge in an attempt to correct it. They were removed easily, quickly, and painlessly with a simple tug on both at once by the nurse. And they removed the elastic bandages wrapped around the length of my lag and my arm where the harvesting was performed.
As I think I already mentioned, the leg was done endoscopically with a one-inch incision above the knee. The arm, however, was a surprisingly long incision from wrist to elbow and was quite shocking to see the first time it was revealed. Also a surprise was the plastic tube coming out of my bicep, a drain for the wound: it was very uncomfortable… and a tad unsightly lol!
Moving forward again, today is July 1. Yesterday I finally got to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the surgery by skydiving after getting rained out on the actual date last Thursday. It was even more exhilarating than the first jump seven years ago! And as hard as I tried to focus on every detail and burn it into my memory, it was such a sensory overload that it almost became a blur. It is that incredible! This date last year marked the last night in Brigham and Women’s – I was told I’d be going home in the morning. Am not sure I slept at all this night a year ago, I was just so excited.
Recall f you will that I left home on June 18 for a treadmill stress test – and never went home until two procedures, two hospitals, and two weeks. Oh, and two showers as well! Yes, I was only allowed two showers, both at Brigham and Women’s: one on the Monday after I arrived there and one a week and a day later for my discharge!
You can well imagine my excitement to go home! There had been talk of being discharged on Monday, but on Sunday night after my 5th walk up and down the hallway we settled in to eat supper when the machine watching over me went crazy and brought in a bunch of nurses. Apparently my heart decided to do something highly alarmable: I heard afib, tachycardia, and other terms. All I know is they plugged another feed into my IV and things settled out. But it was enough to prevent me being discharged on Monday. So we spent another day with fingers crossed that my heart would behave itself enough for them to let me go. And it did!
And today, a year ago, it was over – I was discharged after two weeks in the hospital complete with four new cardiac arteries to feed my heart. I was so excited to leave, all wanted to do was see my house and my yard again, and to sit in my chair. It was, as it always is in a hospital, a long and drawn-out affair to get free. Once we had a good idea it was imminent, I texted my son in law to come pick us up. Of course I knew it was close to an hour drive for him so we’d be waiting for a bit but that did NOT matter one iota.
We finally began the journey through wings and floors and buildings: my wife beside me and a nurse pushing my wheelchair. We eventually made it to the main discharge door and then out into the bright and hot July day. And I reveled in that hot sun; I’d been in an air-conditioned environment for two solid weeks (except for the five minutes when I was transferred from the ambulance into B&W) and I had been dying to feel the sun on my face. And here, now, finally, I could! After a few minutes it became too much for my wife so we moved into the shade but still – I was outside!!
The drive home was uneventful – I rode in the back due to possible airbag deployment which would spilt me back open again. I was unable to tolerate the shoulder strap across my chest so I tucked in under my arm and hung my luck on my son in law’s driving (and correctly so).
I don’t think I can express how it felt to see my house and yard again as we pulled into the driveway; it was almost overwhelming to me. The walk (sort of, more like a shuffle) from the car to the door lasted forever and was intoxicating to me. Once I got inside, I made my way to my chair and once seated it was like all the cares in the world evaporated for me…it was heaven.
My next stop after a little time sitting was the bedroom. My wife was freaked out that I could not sleep in the bed and had been talking about renting a hospital bed (absolutely NOT), or maybe setting me up on the couch. Her biggest fear was that I would be unable to get into it as it is a fairly high bed and I was still on the frail side of physical activity. But I easily got up and into the bed, which was a great relief. Getting out was a bit of an issue since I was not permitted to place any strain on my chest by using my elbows or arms to help me get up, but I did manage to do it and finally slept in my own bed once again that night.