The six-day Blur

Shortly before 5:00PM Monday, almost exactly six days and 12 hours after we left for the hospital I arrived back at Mom & Dad’s home. Dad unpacked the car while Mom and I took a walk around the neighborhood. A kind neighbor had made Lasagna and salad for our first dinner. We watched a DVD and I had my first full night sleep in a week. A real sense of calm came over me and the realization finally set in – I survived it.

Through the fog of pain and pain medications, I have a hard time reconstructing what happened and when. Time simultaneously, dragged and raced. I spent a great deal of time with my headphones on listening to my iPod. Sometimes music, but mostly I listened to an audio-book that I had downloaded just before going into the hospital. The Places in Between, by Rory Stewart, Is a fantastic tale of this Scotsman's walk across Afghanistan, beginning shortly after the fall of the Taliban. I will have to start the book over because my retention was almost nil. It did serve as the backdrop for some fantastic drug-induced dreams with talking camels and meanderings through never-ending caves, and smoky coffee houses with bad guys lurking in every corner. So my heart surgery journey with a predictive positive outcome around 98%, is linked in my mind with his journey that had a survival outcome of less than 1%. Yet we both emerged from it. My journey was a no-brainer - it had to be done. I never will understand what drove him, but I do admire his courage.

The most striking thing to me is how many people at the Mayo Clinic touched my life in the last week. A few I hope I never forget, like Brenda Blevins the Intensive Care Nurse that took care of my every need for three nights. Others came and went quickly, their names can’t recall even now and their faces will no doubt soon fade away. They checked my vital signs, cleaned my room, or briefly examined me. If I were to make a guess, I would say about 200 people came into contact with me, but the real number could have been half or twice that. As I’m writing this no doubt another patient has taken my place and is undergoing heart surgery today.

By far the most uplifting thing for me was when medical students were brought in by the doctors to examine me. The doctors always ask your permission first and then each one of the students will also ask also. I enjoy the thought that years from now one of these students will see a person with and odd combination of symptoms, think to check for aortic valve regurgitation, put two-and-two together quickly enough to kill off the bacteria before it has damaged someone’s heart. Or better yet, one of these students may be the one to develop the molecular therapies that fix heart defective valve problems in early childhood.

Of course, I’m disappointed that the surgery revealed more extensive damage inside my heart than was detected by the TEE test. The need for the second surgery with a pacemaker was an extra blow that my body has to deal with. But the system worked from me this time. All those people were in place with the skills and resources necessary to fix my heart and I thank God for all of them. My problem was found in time and the repair was successful. Now I need to get busy rebuilding my respiratory system and caring for my broken sternum.