PORTLAND PICKLE VOL 1 ISSUE 3

We are definitely in recovery mode and I should probably be sharing a bit more about what this whole grand adventure has been about.  Open heart surgery, even just the phrase is fraught with the sense of impending doom.  I am here to report that the medical profession treats it as just another “day at the office”.  And from what we have been told and based on my understanding of what Mick has experienced, it’s pretty accurate for a significant minority (as in 40%) of those who undergo the procedure.  Yes it is incredibly invasive, and yes the anaesthesia and narcotics really do a number on your sense of well-being.  But for those lucky ones the pain is minimal, a couple of Tylenol a day will take care of that.  It is a feeling of total exhaustion that seems to permeate your whole being that’s the most difficult thing with which you have to deal.

While still in hospital he was treated as a bit of a pincushion.  If they weren’t pumping drugs into his system, they were extracting or draining various fluids out of it by way of assorted tubes from innumerable and diverse portions of his body.  If that is not indignity enough they still expected him to stand up and take a stroll around the ward trailing bags and wheeled poles, all the while dresses in a stunning hospital gown.    To add insult to injury, for the first three days, there was an hourly finger prick to check insulin levels.  What the relationship between heart surgery and blood glucose might be I have no idea, but consider what a minimum of 36 pin pricks in the end of your fingers must look and feel like.  As I said, a human pin cushion. 

Learned that one of the ways they use to determine how well you are recovering from the drugs is to ask personal questions.  Such as, how old are you, or when were you born?  I always thought that the DOB thing was about being sure they have the right person but it is more about how lucid you are.  They actually scan your arm band and link it to your medical records on the computer.  Next thing you know we all have a bar-code tattooed to our wrist or a chip implanted in our neck.  Too much like big brother is watching for my taste but in an environment like a hospital it does have value.

I knew things were improving when he demanded that someone give him a shower, or at least a wash down in the bed.  In British parlance also known as a blanket bath.  Next request was a razor, nixed by Ben on the grounds that he could hardly stand up, never mind wash his face and then drag a blade across his chin, all while connected to all their monitoring equipment.     

Between a white board in his room and a glass door panel with grease pen markers they catalogued who was on duty, which therapists (respiratory, physical or occupational) were expected to visit, how many walks he had taken, how many times he had sat up in his chair (a comfy looking recliner), the does and don’ts of “sternal care”, and other bodily functions and measures, oh my!

Sternal care, now there’s a euphemism for you.  What it really means is they cracked open your chest, mucked around inside, wired it back together, quickly basted (a sewing term) the opening back together and then said “be careful” you don’t want things falling out in your lap.  In the end our rules for living (aka guess what Gayle gets to do) over the next six to eight weeks are:

• ·         No lifting anything weighing more than a gallon of milk (10 pounds)
• ·         No pushing or pulling anything heavy, like doors and windows or garbage cans or even unscrewing tight jar lids (hmmm)
• ·         No putting your arms over your head, i.e. No high cupboard, careful putting on shirts, jackets and t-shirts.
• ·         No reaching out to the side, turn your body instead.  The horror story to go along with this one was the gentleman who reached from the front seat to the back seat of the car to hand his grandchildren something and had to have the all their seamstress like handiwork redone.
• ·         No driving. 
• ·         Use a pillow against your chest to hug yourself when coughing or sneezing.  It also works well when getting up and down as a reminder not to use your arms.  
  
• ·         Avoid using your hands to push yourself up from a sitting position, or when getting out of bed. 

Early on I would help him get out of bed (remember, now he is restricted to sleeping FLAT on his back) by putting a hand behind his shoulders while he swung his legs over the edge of the bed in hopes that the momentum would propel him in to a sitting position.   Now, with no assistance from me, he goes through an acrobatic manoeuvre akin to something a break-dancer might do to get from his back to his feet, all the while holding his arms across his chest. 

So, not many pretty pictures this time but our next instalment should be entitled the walking fools.  And if I can get my head in to it, a series of images of walks in and around the Pearl.  In closing know that we/he is making great progress, all systems are normal and the prescribed therapy is walking, and walking and more walking.  With of course many intermittent naps in between.