Thursday, March 02, 2006
The good news is, I'm home from the hospital, and only a little the worse for wear.
The bad news is, nothing good happened either, which is why I am back at the keyboard on Thursday evening. After digging around and poking under my heart for a couple more hours than planned, the doctors still could not get through a bit of membrane that's not supposed to be there, to get the new lead into the proper spot. Damn!
The upsides to this: I got to come home Thursday afternoon (although all I did once I got home was sleep). I'm not any worse off than I was before. I met some very nice people - the team of nurses was John, Joanne, and James, which has got to be confusing on occasion; had a nice conversation about motorcycle touring with John, and James has a peculiar sense of humor. Hari (whose full name I actually *can* spell and pronounce, but I'll spare you) told me stuff I didn't know about how Indians usually sign their names and why US counterfeiters/forgers/ID thieves always get it wrong. All in all, I picked up a nice amount of trivia to add to my stores. And the recovery people actually listened to me - when I woke up, there was a turkey sandwich and orange juice and cranberry juice waiting for me, which they let me gobble down right away.
The downsides: well, many things are the same as if the surgery had been successful: there's an incision in my chest, it hurts like hell, I need to take the same painkillers and antibiotics as if we had actually accomplished something. Sitting up to get out of bed is difficult when one can't use one's left arm to balance on or push with. I can tell that the sedative hasn't quite worn completely off yet-I'm making far more typos than usual. I guess that's in part because instead of being out of surgery by 11 or so, they kept trying, and it was after 1:00 before they said let's call it a day before we poke through something wrong, so I've had a larger dose of the sedative than expected.
And my shoulder is sore and I'm not going to keep typing for much longer, but I did want to give y'all this update. What the future holds: sometime in a few months, after this incision heals up, we discuss doing things the hard way - cracking open a couple of ribs so that the dr can peer right in at the heart directly rather than through fiber optics, and can actually push things aside if need be. That will be more serious surgery, requiring several days in the hospital and weeks of recovery, so I told him let's plan on after 4th of July- usually no band concerts from July 5 to the end of August, so if I can't play, that's the time not to. Although it will interfere with some nice bike riding weather. Anyway, not going to worry about it yet - sufficient unto the day is the wickedness thereof.
Now I am going to lie back down and rest my arm. And do my best to keep Pickle from jumping on it to offer me sympathy.
The bad news is, nothing good happened either, which is why I am back at the keyboard on Thursday evening. After digging around and poking under my heart for a couple more hours than planned, the doctors still could not get through a bit of membrane that's not supposed to be there, to get the new lead into the proper spot. Damn!
The upsides to this: I got to come home Thursday afternoon (although all I did once I got home was sleep). I'm not any worse off than I was before. I met some very nice people - the team of nurses was John, Joanne, and James, which has got to be confusing on occasion; had a nice conversation about motorcycle touring with John, and James has a peculiar sense of humor. Hari (whose full name I actually *can* spell and pronounce, but I'll spare you) told me stuff I didn't know about how Indians usually sign their names and why US counterfeiters/forgers/ID thieves always get it wrong. All in all, I picked up a nice amount of trivia to add to my stores. And the recovery people actually listened to me - when I woke up, there was a turkey sandwich and orange juice and cranberry juice waiting for me, which they let me gobble down right away.
The downsides: well, many things are the same as if the surgery had been successful: there's an incision in my chest, it hurts like hell, I need to take the same painkillers and antibiotics as if we had actually accomplished something. Sitting up to get out of bed is difficult when one can't use one's left arm to balance on or push with. I can tell that the sedative hasn't quite worn completely off yet-I'm making far more typos than usual. I guess that's in part because instead of being out of surgery by 11 or so, they kept trying, and it was after 1:00 before they said let's call it a day before we poke through something wrong, so I've had a larger dose of the sedative than expected.
And my shoulder is sore and I'm not going to keep typing for much longer, but I did want to give y'all this update. What the future holds: sometime in a few months, after this incision heals up, we discuss doing things the hard way - cracking open a couple of ribs so that the dr can peer right in at the heart directly rather than through fiber optics, and can actually push things aside if need be. That will be more serious surgery, requiring several days in the hospital and weeks of recovery, so I told him let's plan on after 4th of July- usually no band concerts from July 5 to the end of August, so if I can't play, that's the time not to. Although it will interfere with some nice bike riding weather. Anyway, not going to worry about it yet - sufficient unto the day is the wickedness thereof.
Now I am going to lie back down and rest my arm. And do my best to keep Pickle from jumping on it to offer me sympathy.
