Monday, April 15, 2013

Back to Work

This will be my last week of staying home. I go back to work next Monday. It will be 5 weeks after my surgery. To make sure I'm up to it I am getting up at 5:00 AM all this week to help me get back on a work schedule.

I am feeling better every day and have more energy and importantly more stamina with each passing day. So ... There's nothing for it but to go back to work and get on with my life. My doctors have told me it could be some time till I feel as good as I did before the triple bypass, but they also say that at some point I will be more healthy than before and actually feel better than I have in years. I am looking forward to that.

I will try to do a little work around the house this week, keeping in mind my restrictions on lifting, pushing, pulling or tugging. It seems that the sternum takes a good deal longer to heal than just a few weeks and you have to be careful not to mess up the wiring job they do on the bone by over exercising or straining the chest bone. You know right away when you overdo, the pain is instant and a little scary. Still, I look forward to some work in the garden and doing some minor honey-dos while I have the chance.

Next week it's back to work and back to a more normal existence. I thank God each day for blessing me with that opportunity.

Hope your summer is relaxing and joyful.


RT

Saturday, April 6, 2013

Cardiac Rehabilitation

Three weeks ago yesterday I was laying on an operating table with my chest split open, my heart stopped and my lungs deflated while a machine breathed and circulated my blood for me. A very skilled team of individuals was monitoring all this while an even more skilled individual grafted new arteries on to my three coronary arteries. The operation took 6 hours of which I spent a little more than one hour on the heart and lung machine. 

Three weeks ago today I woke up just after midnight and was overjoyed to be alive. Then came the pain and the realization that things had really changed. I had tubes sticking out of me from various places, a device that went into my heart for some unknown (to me) purpose and a variety of IVs, EKG leads and sundry other attachments of some sort of medical necessity. 

After a week in the hospital I was allowed to come home. My wife, Vicki, spent the first week taking care of me and last week I managed on my own. My Cardiologist says I'm making good progress and I see the surgeon this coming week to get all the staples and stitches left remaining in me removed. So ... Things seem good this Saturday afternoon, I've got the energy to write and the will to do it.

I hope all of you are blessed with as much good fortune as I have been.

RT