I've been making small steps here and there in my recovery from surgery. It has been humbling, exhausting, depressing, discouraging, and a mostly negative experience.
Of course, what is encouraging is what can not yet feel and will never see; the current condition of my heart and health. I'm trying to focus on that. I went from being a "walking time bomb" (the exact words of my cardiologist), and "if you don't do this surgery, your life WILL be shortened" (again, his exact words), to where I am today. Today, I'm someone who is struggling to simply take my life back. You see, surgeons go in and do their thing, and then seven hours later they are done with it. They do rounds, leave, and have a nice evening.
From my perspective, the battle begins with huge amounts of pain and incredible feats of endurance, such as very basic things like getting out of your hospital bed, along with all the tubes connected to you, which include a heart monitor, two tubes that go into your chest cavity, and the all-popular catheter. And all of these tubes drain liquid into a special box that must also accompany you to the bathroom.
Once there, allow 5 minutes to take off your hospital smock. Another 5 minutes to sit down on the toilet to rest from that. Yes, that is about the extent of your endurance. Then, you take a washcloth and clean one arm. Then you rest for 5 minutes all over again. Yes, it takes that much out of you. So, the act of cleaning myself up lasted a good 45 minutes. Once I got back into my clean smock and back into bed, my body rewarded me - not from being all cleaned up, but with a lot of pain from moving around as if to say, "What the hell did you just to to me?". My reward was a shot of morphine in my IV. It actually didn't suck.
Today, I'm obviously much stronger and able to do many things by myself. Just yesterday, I went to Valley Falls Park not too far from our home, to take a morning walk. There's a flat trail there that's about a mile long. I met this woman walking her dog, who mentioned to me that it's nice walking through the forest, but I might want to avoid the trail going back around the lake because it is washed out from all the rain we've been having.
So when I came to the fork in the trail that would take me to that washed out trail, I decided to go look. I went down by the river which was raging along at a high rate from all the water, and there were times that the water was over the trail. I would grab a tree and swing around the water to solid land. I kept doing this for awhile and at one time started to panic that maybe I was in over my head because I had never gone this far, and the high water was worrisome. But I kept going.
I finally spotted the boardwalk that let's you cross the river. That was a relief because I knew I wasn't far from the reservoir. At the end of the boardwalk, was a short trail, followed by stairs that descended this hill. I walked up the stairs, not looking up at all. I kept saying to myself, "they are simply moving forward, not up". At the top, their was a bench. I sat down and my pulse was strong but steady, around 100 beats per minute. I was not gasping for breath like I would have been before surgery. It would seem that my body is in better shape now.
I got back to my car, and rested some more before returning home. In all, I walked around 3 miles. It was a first. But it also made me realize that maybe I took a chance that I shouldn't have taken. I think I need help with this, and taking daily walks is not it. So, I'm going to call the "cardiac rehab" today or Monday and try to get in. I think it will give me focus on my recovery and if anything happens, I won't be stuck by myself out in the middle of the woods. I'll be in a hospital.
Another milestone is that Kent left this morning and will be gone for over a week. So if I do get into trouble on a walk, I'm really pretty screwed. This is the first time I've been alone since my surgery. So, I'm a bit anxious about that, but I will do the best I can. Today looks to be a nice day. I'm getting a haircut this afternoon in West Hartford, so maybe I'll go to Max's Oyster Bar for dinner. They have selections that are "heart healthy" (fish "simply grilled" with no cream sauces that are just delicious, served with steamed vegetables. After that, a nice quiet evening at home waiting for a call from Kent to make sure he got to his destination ok.
And with a little added luck, two new movies from Netflix will arrive today. Have a good day everyone.
