Random morning musings

It is official. I will return to work full time starting January 5th.

Medically, I am transitioning from recovery to follow-up. Personally, I am transitioning from my cozy nest on the couch to living in the wider world. The nest will still be here, I just can't sit in it all day.

I'm rethinking how I celebrate the turning of the year. For many, many years, I have spent New Year's Eve and New Year's Day watching the Twilight Zone. I've added a labyrinth walk and First Footing to the mix for the last couple of years. This year, I'm going to take the Twilight Zone out of the mix and see how it feels.

Thank you to those who said they'd keep reading if I keep writing the blog. Someone reminded me that it takes a year to recover from surgery. When I heard that, the first thing that occurred to me is between 2014 and now into 2015, I will have spent the better part of two years recovering from surgeries. I guess that means I still have recovery to write about.

Well, it is a beautiful day out there. I think I might like to go for a walk. As Marilyn Whirlwind just said to Joel,in Northern Exposure,  it is time to get up, I'm ready.

Estimated return to work day

This morning, my phone beeped at me and showed what is on the calendar for today - "Estimated return to work".  I started working last week. I am still working part time from home. The MD did determine a date for me to return to work full time, but I don't know what that date is at this point.

I admit it, anxiety is setting in. Today my mind is feeling a bit like a snow globe - someone keeps shaking it, the snow keeps swirling around.

To do lists are making an appearance in my life again - call about this or that, remember to do this or that. *sigh*  Soon I will have to leave my cozy nest every day.

It is time to return, although honestly, I am having a difficult time defining and describing exactly what I am returning to. Normal life? Typical life? The same old routine? It isn't quite out with the old and in with the new. It is a passage and interestingly enough it coincides with the arbitrary determination of a new year. And with the more eternal and cosmic turning of the earth and the return of the sun.

Rhythms and cycles... I sense a theme.

And what to do with the blog? I started it so that I could keep all of you informed about my recovery and have a record of my recovery. Now that recovery is coming to and end, or has it? I am becoming more disenchanted every day and where am I now that the enchantment is fading. Do you want to see the blog continue?

The snow globe is shaking and the snow is swirling.

Rice Mush

I have a very mysterious childhood memory. It is of a book. I didn't read the book. It was read to me in class on one of the public television shows that preceded "Reading Rainbow". The story was set in a Scandinavian country. It was about a mother and two children struggling to live while the father is away at war. I don't remember much else about the book except the rice pudding or mush that is made on Christmas. The children manage to scrape together enough money to buy the ingredients for rice pudding - rice, milk, raisins, almonds. I clearly remember the description of the ingredients wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine. The mother's surprise and delight at the gift. And that is it. I don't remember anything else about the story. I think the title of the book was "Children of the Earth".

I've searched for this book. I have never found it. It is a mysterious and perhaps imaginary book. A lonely child's dream of family and tradition.

I've never found the book. Yet, the dream came true (and now I'm getting all weepy). My step-father, Phil, made rice mush on Christmas morning for many years. It was a tradition in his Norwegian family. Rice mush is basically rice cooked in milk. It is warm, creamy, simple and earthy. Along with the rich mush, Phil brought with him the gift of family - sisters, aunts, uncles, cousins - they took me in as one of their own. They are my family. And I love them in ways that even I don't always understand. And I am so grateful to them and for them.

This morning I made rice mush.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Welcome Yule!

I wrote this last year for my writing group. I sent it on December 20 and in the email I ask how everyone is doing on the snowy morning. I don't think the snow lasted very long. The other day I was thinking that I didn't remember it snowing at all last year. But I digress...

Welcome Yule! May you have a blessed Solstice! 

Solstice

It is simple.

On Solstice Night -

Go outside,

Ask the ancient stars

in the quiet sky,

How would we survive 

without the light

in the heart

of the longest night?

Anybody seen my id badge?

Now that I can manage to open the front door by myself, I can get out for walks on my own. So I did just that yesterday. It was a chilly brisk day and it felt absolutely wonderful to be out. I walked down to the University Village. My primary objective was The Confectionary, one of the best candy shops in Seattle. I needed Jordan Almonds. They are a Christmas tradition for me. Somehow some jelly bellys, reindeer corn (like candy corn only green, red and white) and peppermint sticks wound up in my bag as well. Whoops!

After so much solitude, being around a lot of people was strange. I'll get used to it but at first it is tiring.

The other big news from yesterday is that I started the process of returning to work. I will work from home for the week of December 29th and will head back to work in the office on January 5th.  I'll play it by ear at that point. If it is too tiring to be in the office all day, I may work half days in the office and half a day at home. I have such a great supervisor! She has been so supportive and understanding through all of this. For those of you who may think this is too soon, the truth is I really have to get back to work. Most of this leave has been unpaid, although I may get some short term disability at some point. Also, my health insurance will stop on January 1. It would start up as soon as I return to work, but I really don't want it to lapse.

Now I need to find my bus pass and id badge. I was very clever before going into the hospital. I cleaned out the bag I'd been carrying each day to work. I put my bus pass and badge "someplace safe". Some of you know what that means, I now can't remember where the safe place is. I have two weeks to find them. Wish me luck!

3 weeks post-op

I should have written the good news from the cardiologist post yesterday. Today I am feeling a bit, well, flat. I wonder if part of the flatness is from my Zen-like heart beat. Yesterday, my blood pressure was 112/68 - slow, low, calm. My pulse rate was 66. The trouble is, because of the medication to maintain this slow, calm heart beat, my heart doesn't respond to the messages the rest of my body sends. I feel stuck in first gear. I walk up a flight of stairs and I start to breathe a bit faster but my heart rate doesn't respond by beating a bit faster. Emotions change heart rate as well.

I mentioned the exercise thing to the cardiologist so he changed the dosage of the metoprolol - the beta blocker I take to control my blood pressure.

The appointment went well. The cardiologist thinks I am doing well. I told him I thought I was feeling better every day. When he asked to see what used to be an incision and is now a scar, we all had a chuckle. The scar has a little zig at the top. The cardiologist joked that perhaps the surgeon was drunk at the time. Mr R suggested it was the Coriolis Effect. I think it gives the scar a bit of personality.

As far as returning to work, he said it is up to me. I admit I do have a touch of cabin fever.

My heart with feet is on the uphill climb of recovery.

Northern Exposure

The Northern Exposure recovery marathon is moving along. This morning I'm watching one of my favorite episodes. It is the episode when the town of Cicely celebrates Christmas in a variety of ways. Holling fills the church with candles and sings Ave Maria for Shelly because she is missing Christmas Mass. Joel tries to have a Christmas tree but doesn't understand it so he decorates it and gives it to Maggie. Chris reads "The Friendly Beasts" (one of my favorite carols). The town is decorated with Ravens and Marilyn tells the story of The Raven returning the light to the sky so we no longer live in darkness.

This episode always leaves me thoughtful and a bit teary.

I haven't done any decorating for the holidays - Yule, Solstice, Advent or Christmas. I admit I find this time of the year a bit unsettling and confusing. I feel adrift. I really don't have any family traditions to cling to. I've managed to get Thanksgiving figured out by establishing my own tradition. But the Winter Holidays still elude me. I just can't seem to get through all of the surface stuff, the rules and rituals of the seasons. I struggle to get down to the essential and elemental. I haven't yet figured out how to establish my own traditions.

I think that is why I love the Raven festival in Northern Exposure so much. It is so outside the usual holiday stuff. Besides, I love the Raven myth. It shows me what is at the heart of this season - the craving for light, the desire to no longer live in darkness.

I need some egg nog now...

Surfacing

"Disenchantment is the blessing of becoming yourself" - Rebecca Solnit, The Faraway Nearby

If being under anesthesia is like being enchanted, then coming out of it is becoming disenchanted. It feels like surfacing - coming up from a deep dark place into the air, light, and memory again. When I first surfaced after surgery, I was still intubated and it felt awful. There were people beside me, and I heard a voice say "Heidi, we know it is uncomfortable and we are working on it."  Then I slid under again.

I surfaced again briefly while still intubated. The next time, the tube was gone. I felt I was in an enormous room. I could hear voices. I have no recollection of Mr. R, his mom, my sister or Carmen entering the room. I do remember each of them coming to the bed and talking to me. At this point I had a mask on, like a fighter pilot mask. I couldn't get my voice to be loud enough to be heard through the mask. I remember wanting to ask Mr R, "Replacement or repair?"  He finally told me that the surgical team was able to repair the aneurysm, which was a relief.

The moments of surfacing became longer. My strongest memory is of the voices and the presence of people at my bedside and responding to them by wiggling my eyebrows. I also figured out how to make sounds with the mask by moving my face. At some point the mask was gone and I was just on oxygen through a cannula. I was able to see that I wasn't in the middle of an airplane hanger.  I remember the nurse telling me that she was giving me dilaudid for the pain. I had to stand up. I moved to the recliner but don't remember moving there.

Disenchantment is a strange and wonderful thing. Coming out of the anesthesia takes several hours. The memories are disjointed and strange. Throughout it all is a sense of moving forward, becoming more substantial, becoming myself.

Where is that memory?

Surgery requires vulnerability, trust, and creates an odd intimacy. There is a group of people who know me in ways no one else ever will. They saw me and my body at a most vulnerable place and time. They saw the inner workings - heart, lungs, muscle, bone. I went in to surgery knowing this and trying not to be embarrassed by what they would see - a middle aged, overweight woman. I do recall making some quip upon entering the operating room and seeing all the equipment. I said something along the lines of "All of this just for me. You shouldn't have." A couple of people introduced themselves. I remember being shifted onto the operating table, blinking a few times, then nothing. I had to go in trusting them - trusting in their skill, their compassion, their ability to see me as a person not just anatomy that needed to be fixed.  They monitored me - kept blood circulating, kept me breathing, repaired my aorta. They kept watch over me. They hold the memory of those hours.

I wonder how many surgeries they have done since mine. I'm sure for them all of the procedures blur together, that eventually the individuals fade. But I will always remember them in both abstract and intimate ways. They left evidence of their presence. I have a scar running down the midline of my chest. I have wire in my sternum and a piece of man-made material where my ascending aorta once was.

It is like being enchanted for a while. Whisked off to a place of forgetfulness. A slumber like no other. And when the enchantment ends, there is no memory, but time has passed and things aren't quite the way they were before.

Visitors, food and something completely unexpected

The past few days have been busy. Friday was the check up. Saturday, my sister Linda drove out to Sequim to get Mom and bring her into town to see me. Mom looked very relieved to see me sitting up, talking, and doing well. Sunday was a flurry of hugs and smiles at St Mark's. It was good to be out and about, although a bit tiring too. Yesterday, I had a couple of visitors. It wasn't much of a day for a walk which was unfortunate! My sweet aunt in Victoria also called yesterday.

Sunday evening, food started arriving - yummy soup and rolls, delicious cookies, and then yesterday amazing Chili Colorado along with tortillas and salad (Thank you Nan!).

Yesterday, I was completely caught off guard and gobsmacked. Mr R brought the mail in. Among the usual catalogs and beggy letters was an envelope with no name or address or stamp. Obviously, it had been placed in the mail box by someone other than the post person. I opened it and found a very sweet get well card.... from Gary, the yard waste guy. Yes, the kind man who helped Mr R and I the day I came home, left me a get well card. As I said, I was gobsmacked. How incredibly thoughtful!

PS- by now some of you will have seen my Facebook post. I think I'm just retaining more fluid than I should. Hopefully, this will be quickly and easily resolved. There are always bumps on the road of healing. My heart is probably still a irritated because of the surgery. I'll keep you all posted.

Anger

It is really easy to write about all of the things I am grateful for on this journey. It isn't as easy to write about how pissed off I am about this whole mess. When I am angry, this is a mess not a journey.

Bear with me, I'm going to write about the anger. I'm angry that I had 2 major surgeries within 15 months. That is a lot for a body to go through, and not just any body - my body. My body isn't perfect, but it sure as hell didn't deserve this! After the surgery last year, I really never wanted to have surgery again, thank you very much.

I am angry that there isn't an explanation for the aneurysm. No idea, no clue... just, surprise, you have this thing, and it needs to be fixed and oh by the way it could rupture or dissect and kill you. I'm angry that no one said that out loud - that this could kill me. Maybe it wouldn't have, but an aneurysm on the aorta seems like something that could potentially be fatal, I'm just saying.

I'm angry about the disruption. I was only 3 months into a new job. My department has lots of work to do... and here I am, robed and slippered, not able to help for awhile. Of course, they understand. Of course, the surgery was more important than the work. I can still feel angry about it.

I am angry about the fear - fear of doing something to cause my sternum to misalign, crack, or do something else besides heal neatly and cleanly. There will be the fear of returning to work, getting on the bus, opening the front door - and I'm pissed I can't open my own front door. I'm angry that unless someone comes over, I'm stuck. I can't get out for a walk or even check the mail. (Anyone want to start scheduling walks with me?)

It is okay for my heart to walk along muttering to itself about how unfair it all is, how scary it all is... that is part of the reality of this.  I believe that I'd do myself much more harm if I didn't occasionally stomp a foot and mutter  "oh for fuck's sake. It is how I get on with it.

First post-op follow up

All of the lab work looked great. The chest x-ray showed clear lungs and that the sternum is still nicely aligned. The EKG looked just fine. When the PA came into the room, I told her it was nice to meet her. She smiled and said we had already met, but at the time I was still really, really sleepy. She said it was nice to meet me awake.

She listened to my heart and chest, and everything sounded fine. And the best moment of all, she took out the really annoying stitches where the chest drain and another drain had been. She answered questions. I received some bandage remover so I can get the bandage gunk off my chest. Then she pronounced that I was on the right recovery pathway, that everything looked great, and that the surgical side of Cardiology didn't need to see me anymore. A sad moment to be cast off so soon...But it means that I'm healing, getting stronger, will someday be able to open my own front door again, and will someday be able to get in and out of chairs without looking like a sumo wrestler, salt throwing and foot stomping not included.

We picked up my new glasses. Had some lunch. Visited my co-workers. Tried to visit another friend who is at a skilled care facility down the street. I managed to get in and out of the car with no complications. Came home..... and napped for a couple of hours.

I got rhythm... or not

Tomorrow I go in for the first of my follow up visits. There will be an EKG, a chest X-ray, the removal of the remaining stitches. I am going to ask about the insomnia. I've always been a terrible sleeper, but it has been worse since surgery. I wake up a lot and stay awake longer. I am still useless at getting myself upright if I am lying down so this is all a bit frustrating.

I think I read somewhere that insomnia can happen after heart surgery. The heart is all about rhythm. During surgery, when a machine helps the blood circulate and keep oxygen going, something is put into the heart to chill it and it is essentially brought to a stand still, the heart loses the beat for awhile. I also wonder if my heart is functioning differently now. There is no more aneurysm, the valve isn't leaking and the huge amount of back flow is probably gone. So not only did my heart stop beating, when it came to, the rhythm must have been different.

I guess this means my heart with feet is dancing to a slightly different rhythm these days. It will take a while to settle into the new rhythm, and for all the other rhythmic things about my body and mind (such as sleeping) to learn the new steps. I'm sure I will stumble and teeter and sometimes feel like I am hanging on for dear life while something older and deeper whirls me round the dance floor. Right now though, I need to listen to the rhythm, feel the rhythm.... oh and get a decent night's sleep.

Bruises, tape and glue...

This morning, I spent time surveying bruises and removing bits of tape and glue. My arms are bruised from IV's and blood draws. The worst bruise is the one where the arterial line was put in on my left wrist. It is a lovely shade of eggplant this morning. For a while, the fingertips of my right hand were stained purple from all the little pricks made for testing blood sugar. I think I can safely say, I'm not diabetic. There was one day when all of my vitals, blood sugar, etc were checked and the numbers were in, and Mr R quipped that based on the numbers, he should be the one in the bed not me.

There are tiny bruises on my abdomen from heparin shots. I haven't checked how much bruising there is around the spot on my neck where there was another IV - Mr R calls it my vampire bite.

The bruising around the actual incision is getting better - it was yellowish the other day, today it is a deep plum color. There are some stitches that need to be removed.

Then there are all of the glue and tape remnants. I'll probably be working that stuff off for weeks.

It amazes me how a body can sustain all of this injury and insult and then turn right around and start fixing the damage. We lean toward light and life and healing. Every day, the bruises are a bit fainter. Or gone. My fingertips aren't purple anymore.  The fleshy part of my left hand under the thumb isn't as tender as it was a couple of days ago. The incision doesn't hurt as much as it did and some of the scabs are coming off. I'm breathing easier. Yesterday, I could feel myself wanting to walk faster than I probably should. I actually had a moment last night when I forgot I'd had surgery.

And my heart keeps walking...

The crows brought me back

Once upon a time... that is how the tale begins isn't it. The thing about surgery is that I have a deep need to remember everything - the food I ate, the people who came to visit me, every single health care person who stepped into my room - RNs, MDs, PTs, OTs, the people who picked up the garbage.  Every face that came around the edge of the curtain and smiled at me, gave some word of encouragement, told me I looked better than yesterday. Some of them signed a heart shaped pillow given to me while I was still in Critical Care. Now, that is where it gets surreal - but I will tell that part of the story later...

But actually, I can't and never will know everything that happened. And in many ways, that is how it should be.

Carmen told me a story from the time when the surgery was finished, but she, my sister, and Mr R, hadn't seen me yet. I was still walking out of oblivion. Carmen told me that she and Mr R were in one of lounges, waiting, and saw crows flying toward the building. A woman was feeding them. Mr R said "Heidi must be waking up. Her minions are returning." My logical, beloved, rational Mr R and his flights of fancy.

There is so much in that for me to ponder - one of my favorite songs is "I'll Fly Away", particularly the Gillian Welch version. Odin had a raven named Memory. There is a Pacific Northwest legend that Raven stole the sun for humanity. My heart has feet and crows are very pedestrian, they walk among us.

The crows brought me back...

Home

In no particular order...There was the final ceremonial removal of the last IV and the leads monitoring my heart. The waiting for prescriptions to be filled. The wheelchair ride that was the fastest I've moved in days. A serendipitous meeting with my manager outside the pharmacy. A visit from my supervisor and a co worker. A couple of visits from a doctor. A long list of meds and follow up appointments. Knowing that my room would be cleaned before I was even out of the hospital. Then the glorious moment of being pushed out through the doors and into the cold air. The mountains, the blue sky - ahh, is this not happiness. 

Then we got to the curb in front of the house. I rotated out of the car, crossed my arms over my chest, got my feet settled and wound up sitting on the frame of the car - perplexed, desperately wanting to use my arms to push myself up - do you know how annoying sternal precautions are? I mean seriously! So Mr R and I sat and stood there trying to figure out what to do. And then the guy showed up to collect the compost - so then there's that. But he came over asked if we needed help, and Mr R explained the situation to him. Then I, the non spatial thinker, the "don't tell me to imagine what this will look like by imagining folding it on the dotted lines, I actually have to fold it on the fecking line", had a moment of clarity. (No I'm not going to walk the earth - however bonus points if you know the movie reference) I knew what we all had to do - I turned a little sideways, Mr R spotted me in the front, and the kind, generous man gave me a little tap on the small of the back and there I was standing! We did get the truck number and will be sending a letter to the company thanking this man who came to our aid at a very strange moment. 

I don't think I did any sternal damage. I have taken some pain meds and have settled into the ugly green chair, my trusted companion in rest and healing. The cat keeps staring at me. Now if I only had some cookie butter and graham crackers....