Open heart surgery: When life throws you curve balls.....

Go down swinging.



Today is Tuesday.  Last Thursday a surgeon cut an 10-inch incision into my chest, and used some type of device (I don't know what and I DON'T want to know what) to break my sternum and spread the two sides apart.

The purpose was to gain access to my heart so he could replace two pieces that would result in my death sometime in the next few (actually, very few) years.  And I wouldn't know it was coming in time to get to a hospital.  The aorta would rupture and I would lose consciousness immediately.  There was nothing I could do to prevent it.  It was going to happen.

Our decision was a weighing of the following:  (1) When the measurements in my aorta reach a certain level, my probabilities of dying from the aneurysm bursting are greater than are my chances of dying from having the surgery,  Has that threshold been met?  (2) Since I might live for 1-5 years without the surgery, is what I have to live for after five years worth it enough to me to risk death on the operating table now?  (3) Do I want to be in control of my own death?  (4)  Now that I know that I have this time bomb in my chest, could I hurt someone else with my death since it could come when I was driving my family, wife, grandchildren, etc.?  And if it happened while driving, I might crash into another car.   That seemed to be a very unfair thing to do to other people.   (5) When is the best time in terms of the other aspects of my health and strength that would affect my odds of survival?

Answers:  yes, yes, yes, yes, and now ( I am otherwise in excellent physical condition, which is a good predictor of rehab).

I want to say something about #2 above.  It was a huge part of my decision to proceed.  I want to spend more than five years with my Vicky.  I want to be alive for her when life throws her curve balls, and I want to experience the thrill of life that I have had with her for the past seven years.  We are not done.

I am fixing my physical heart because of my valentine heart. Corny but oh well.

When I was in the operating room waiting to be sedated, I was thinking about how I knew I could just call the whole thing off, probably live 1-3 more years, and maybe squeeze in another two (big maybe, actually). And in that cold room, with 10-15 people standing around in green gowns, hard to see that they are even people because they were all wearing masks, I was frightened.  I knew that in a few seconds it might all be over.

It had all been so sudden.  It has felt as if I had gone from having no serious medical issues to needing close monitoring to needing surgery very rapidly.   Other people have similar things happen to them, and everybody eventually dies.  And I am fortunate, very fortunate, that what I have that could kill me is something that can be completely eliminated from my life.  But it was still head-spinning how rapidly my health status changed.  We had just finished our 7th STP, and been doing hard (and long and hilly) rides since then.  We were in the best shape ever. And I could die from heart problem in the near future?  Hard to grasp.

Everyone was professional in that room, and nice, but it was a group of total strangers.  Even my surgeon, who I knew, wasn't there yet, and the anesthesiologists I had met that morning weren't there.  All around this very large room was equipment, screens, things hanging from the ceiling.  The sounds of things clanging onto tables.  I was close to being in a state of disbelief about why I was even there.

Except I knew why I was there.  It was that curve ball of a diagnosis of a death heart, a diagnosis that seemed to have come at me out of the blue. That's why I was there.

I actually thought about it this way, to make myself feel better: If I go down, I wanted to go down swinging.

It sounds very dramatic, I know, but that's how I was feeling right then and what I was thinking.  I didn't want life to come at me--I was going to come at it.  I didn't want the people I love to be afraid when that time comes at them.  How do I show them to not be afraid when it happens to them?

Just turn around and face it. Go down swinging.  Don't just stand there taking a called third strike. 

So, I stepped up to the plate, scratched myself ........(OK, Dan, you are getting carried away by the metaphor)

Another consideration was rehab.

Rehab was one of the major motivations for purchasing Nuestra Casa, our home in Arizona.  After a few weeks of recovery from the surgery we will return there where I can be outside every day doing 3 mile walks along ponds, and be a 10 minute walk to the swimming pool and gym.  In the winter no less, when the weather is perfect!

We can also start riding bikes in the area since it is a gated community and everybody drives slow.  Streets are wide.  In our little home we have an area for dancing and for ping pong, our other two activities.  We are short drives from some of our favorite camping and hiking spots, and can do that when I am strong enough to get into and out of the camper. And medical services are within walking distance, instead of taking up the better part of a day just getting to and from appointments,  We both immediately knew it would be perfect for someone needing a few months of rehab.

Fortunately or unfortunately (or both), I didn't have the "help" of feeling discomfort and knowing that I would feel better after the surgery.  I felt no symptoms to motivate me.  It was not diagnosed on the basis of a symptom pattern I was presenting to a medical professional.  Instead, it was diagnosed because of a medical professional who did extra things at my yearly meeting with him, extra things that he was not paid to do. More on that later.

But, man, this operation is not for sissies.   More on that later, too.

Right now it is 5 days after the completion of the operation.  I have just arrived back home on Whidbey Island, looking out at our woods and birds as I write this.  It is fall, so the flowers are gone, and the colorful tropical birds that swarm like bees are back where it is warm.  I saw a Pileated Woodpecker (one of our favorites) at the bird feeders I filled last week, greeting my arrival back home and thanking me for the food.

If there is a more beautiful place to recover than here I don't know where it would be.  But the trip getting home today from the hospital was tiring, tiring, tiring.

I'm alive!  I am so fortunate.  So very fortunate.  When I experience a wave of pain or of exhaustion I make myself remember:  Nobody forced this on me, I chose it. 

I feel like I was thrown a life curve ball because, even though I have been pretty good at the eating and weight and exercise thing,  I nevertheless ended up with a life-threatening heart problem.

And, tonight, I feel horrible.  I hurt everywhere.

But I also feel great, because I know that all of my pain and exhaustion is because I swung at that curve ball.

I hear the crack of the bat as it makes contact.  Ball is in the air, the crowd is standing, and it is looking good!