Well I'm home for 24 hours now and it's a good day. It's my birthday. Wow 47 as of 20 minutes ago.
I am very grateful that my medical team helped me to find the problem with the valve and aneurysm and to have a great surgeon and the staff in such a well respected hospital!
My trip to the hospital was uneventful. I slept quite well the night before so I was as calm as a clam.
I went into surgery at 7:30 AM for what was supposed to be a 4-6 hour procedure. It actually took 9 1/2 hours. Excessive bleeding is what happened that isn't uncommon. that is why they ask if you want to let people you know donate blood. I'm A+ by the way. Which I didn't find out until the morning of surgery.
This is the thing. As a patient you're given all this pre-op literature to help you prepare for Major surgery. In the information they let you know that many people wake up after surgery they are confused and don't know where they are. The anesthesia makes you forget. So they tell you to have someone there in the room when you wake up in the recovery room after surgery to help you know all is okay. So I had my ducks all in a row. Great I was as prepared as anyone could have been.
After the surgery was over my doctor let John and my sister Punkin know that everything had gone well with the surgery and that I would probably just sleep through the night and told them that there was no reason to stay and should go ahead and go home.
But I did wake up.
I awakened @ 11PM. I opened my eyes and saw the clock on the wall in the intensive care unit. I looked around the room and didn't recognized anyone. They actually seemed a little surprised that I woke up but were ready to take care of me. I panicked a bit because I didn't know whether I was dead or alive. I knew I was having surgery but didn't get what to do. They were still working on my with a breathing tube down my throat. They talked to me for a bit reassuring me that all was well and that they were going to take the tube out of my throat. All I remember was how much my chest hurt. They gave me more pain medication.
They gave me the rundown on the IV in my arms and in my neck, what surgery I had just experienced and again that all went very well.
I asked where John was and they said he had gone home. I asked for my mother and they said no one was there that everyone had gone home. I started to cry. I needed to see someone I knew and loved.
So they called John but they didn't get an answer. I had them call my sister and my mother. They finally got a hold of my Mom in Gilroy. which is 80 miles away. She arrived at UCSF @ 1AM with my sisters Gina and Margie. I can't tell you how much it made a difference seeing someone you love and that loves you! I started to relax. My family left @ 3AM.
John and my sister arrived in ICU the next morning. Turns out that John and Punkin were so exhausted from the whole day of waiting that neither of them heard the phone call at home. It was around 11:30 PM remember.
I was being treated by my nurse Ron. (Picture 1- Go to bottom of Blog Page). In ICU they have 1 nurses per patient. Ron was amazing. He knew his work so well and made you feel at ease and comfortable in the most un-natural and most uncomfortable setting (Picture 2). He had a quick with and dry humour. He had my sister cracking up. He was an angel really. Anyone who can take someone doing a Linda Blair impersonation from the Exorsist when she throws up green pea soup... well I won't get into any more details! But John and Punkin were there to see my at my worst and don't think anything less of me because of it. Now that's LOVE!
For the recovery process they want you to walk ASAP after surgery so by morning I started walking. At least once around the ICU area. (Picture 3).
The rest of my stay at the hospital was great. All the nurses in the Heart and Vascular ward on the 10th Floor M were fantastic. Many of them beautiful women who didn't make you blush when they asked you, " Have you passed gas today?" They just want to make sure you starting to get you body going full throttle again.
I had hoped that I was going to be home by day 5 but my doctor wanted to make sure that my blood thinner levels were constant and needed 2 more days of monitoring. I don't think I would have been comfortable at home at that time anyway.
When I got transferred from ICU into a regular room on Wednesday I started to walk laps around the 10th floor. There was a 4 stair ramp to practice going up and down steps at the very end of the corridor. 15 laps equaled 1 mile not counting the stairs. I had made it my goal to be able to walk 1 mile before I went home.
It was hard to walk with my head up. It just made me too dizzy but on Friday I was able to do it and by both Saturday and Sunday I made my goal of 1 mile per day walked in 3 lap sessions spaced out throughout the day. I wanted to make sure that I had my strength built up before I got home and it worked
I am home now. I got home yesterday around 1:30PM feeling quite well. I had no trouble walking up the 3 floors of 32 stairs to get to our condo level. The rest of the day was good.
We had a great grilled chicken Cesar salad for dinner. It tasted great but because I wasn't really eating big meals in the hospital mainly because the food was awful boring and tasteless, I got indigestion.
So needless to say it was a rough night last night! Although it's great to finally be able to be back home I didn't realize how much the security of being in A HOSPITAL makes you feel.
Its amazing how being in the hospital with amenities like being in a bed that you know you can adjust with a push of a button, not having to dodge dogs and being able to just ring a bell if you needed help! You don't realize until you get home how much help the staff in the hospital is key to making sure that you do everything right. Now how your view of annoyance changes!
I had a fitful night. I couldn't make my self comfortable in our bed. My heart kept racing and beating against my chest that I wasn't sure if I could take it any longer. My back was aching terribly even with the 2 Percocets every 4 hours. I couldn't remember the discharge directions of symptoms to watch for signs that things weren't alright. I didn't know if I could stand the edge of the cliff too much longer.
But I did make through without any mishaps and now I'm doing well.
Today is a good day to have a birthday!
XOXO, Jesse
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