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I woke March 1 feeling well and assuming I was a
pretty healthy guy. I woke this morning,
March 8, five and a half days post quadruple bypass surgery very grateful to be
in my own bed with no tubes sticking out of my body in places that, the last
time I remember, didn’t have holes. My
sweet wife was asleep in the bed beside me.
I gingerly experimented with rolling out of the bed, going to the toilet
and slipping on some sweats. I fixed a
delicious pot of coffee, half Starbucks decaf and half Café Monte Verde direct
from the mountain slopes where I camped as a child in Siguatepeque, Honduras.
It was sooo superior to the pretend
coffee from the push button contraption in the hospital cafeteria. While my half bagel toasted and the coffee
brewed I slipped out the front door for a short walk in morning sun slowly
dawning over the Smokies across the valley.
Ben, the neighbor’s dog wandered over to give me his morning greeting. He shot me the “So are we gonna walk?” look
and seemed satisfied with just a good scratching behind the ears. Ben’s my
walking buddy and we have missed a few days this week for obvious reasons. I breathed deeply of the early smells of spring
and am grateful. It is surprising that a
week ago I could walk a couple of miles and not be the least pushed or tired,
now after just eight minutes I need a rest. (Leaving the house on my own was a
no-no, Jan says I’m not allowed out of the house on my own and apparently has
at least two offers for electric dog fences to use on me if I sneak out again.) The toaster was buzzing when I got back and
after 60 seconds the milk in Jan’s mug in the microwave was too, I frothed it
into a fluffy head and poured her morning latte. Fixing a latte for the woman you love just a
day after visiting hell in the company of angels…I tell you my friends, it
doesn’t get any better than this. God is so good, and life is a beautiful
thing.
So what is this “visiting hell in the company of angels
thing?” Hell will be easy to recognize,
but let me introduce you to the angels.
The first angel is my friend Doug, a really funny guy, which is nice,
but he is also a wonderful and caring physician, that is even better. I recommend both to everyone. It seems my cholesterol was a little high
when I got my “welcome to Medicare” physical in November, so Doug suggested that
I get a Cardiac Calcium CT scan. I’m
telling you the names of all these bad boys (tests) because, though I didn’t
particularly enjoy their company, they are all “good guys.” The scan is painless, but my CT result was
not encouraging. After perusing the
internet to try and figure what a Cardiac Calcium CT was trying to tell me and
then further conversation with Doug which put a new light on symptoms which I
had interpreted as being “a little out of shape” I found myself being
introduced to another angel, Chris, an old friend, but my new
cardiologist. Chris suggested I have a
stress echo EKG, a long name for a test that didn’t last very long thanks to my
“aching” heart beginning to act up under stress. A bad result on a stress test leads to the
opportunity to prove yourself in a manly way.
Just step to the table and get a heart cath, see what you are really
made of. My friend Chris encouraged me
that from what he had seen to date, he expected to find a minor blockage
somewhere, would probably put in a stent or two and I’d be home for dinner,
but, as he said, “One never knows.” I
went to sleep feeling like I was in good hands, God’s, Doug’s, Chris’s, and
yeah, even probably my own, I could handle anything…I eat my “baconators” with
one bare hand and fasten my seatbelt because I want to, not because I have
to. Our friend Gina, another angel, was
sitting with Jan waiting for Chris to bring the news. She had warned Jan that you want it to be a
long wait before they come to talk to you, that means they are putting in
stents. If they return quickly,
uh-oh! Well we got an uh-oh. My friends face was on the grim side as he
drew circles around the multiple blockages that showed up on the cath images. My dear wife listened anxiously as he
described me as a walking time bomb and that he did not want me to leave the
hospital. Remember, 3 days ago I was a healthy man. Where is one when “was” goes so suddenly
away? Jan asked if we should go ahead
and get it scheduled for some time next week and he replied that it would not
be necessary I would be having surgery with Dr. D the next morning at 7am. “You will notice,” he said, “that I did not
give you a choice of surgeons. That is
because this is who I want you to see, he changed his 10am surgery tomorrow so
he can see you.” So that is how I met
the next angel, Dr. D. I can’t tell you
how many times I heard while in the hospital, “Chris and Dr. D. you have the
best.” Let me stop and insert at this
point, that I have already left off the names of many angels who shepherded me
through the process up to now, Lisa in Chris’s office and the ladies who did
the stress testing, as well as all the folks involved in the cath lab who prepped
me before and after for all that was to come.
Debbie was a God send for my wife, took her on a tour of the whole
hospital top to bottom with a running commentary of what would happen at each
stop. I don’t remember all the names,
but I will not forget the smiles and the kind and gentle care.
So you say, “Well I get the angel part, those are obviously
a bunch of really fine folks. Where does
“hell” come in? It started nice enough
in pre-op anesthesia, the nice young man who began hooking me up to various
tubes and then proceeded to shave me from top to bottom, and I do mean
bottom. I felt like I was ready to
compete in the summer Olympics…shiny clean shave all over, my did I feel fast. Another
very special Debbie in anesthesia who knew the right things to say and how to
give a hug that mattered to my dear wife as they rolled me away. D-day was full of angels, you know who you are better than I do, you were more there than I was. Jan says she hardly had time to think about how I was doing all day because of your loving presence, if I live to be a hundred I’ll never be able to thank you all enough. Nothing means more to me than your wonderful care of her while I was under. So step up and put on your wings, Robbie and Gina, Doug Messer, Jim B, Billy Blount, Fraser, Jonathan, Clay, Heather, John and Janie, Andy Holt, Ben, Dan and Elizabeth. Lala, Paige and Mike, Buddy and Kathie, Steve, all my kids, assorted (Not sordid) grand kids, Suzanne, Phil and Barb, Harold and Angie, Nan, Bernie and Diane, Robert, Bob and Betsy, Russ and Roberta, Miss Kayla's kindergarten class, and I am sure others I haven’t named. We were flooded with calls and texts and emails. All of you are treasures to us.
A word of caution, from here to about noon
yesterday I was under significant levels of hallucinogenic drugs, awesome
huh? I had wild dreams, strange pictures
that stayed fixed in my mind. Some looked suspiciously like whatever room I was
in, but completely different. Really
interesting plots to some dreams, including something very significant about
the intensity of a black wine my brother-in-law and I are developing? One interesting note was the little blue
light, like the LED on your cable box that showed up in every dream or image. I'll write another blog when I figure out the significance of the light. Arrived in the Cardiac ICU after
approximately four hours of...actually you may be too queasy for that
part. If you want to know what happened
during that four hours you can go to YouTube and search open heart surgery like
Jan and I did after returning home post-op. Pretty amazing, but hard to watch. A new angel in ICU was named Jeff or “MacGyver”
or something like that. He spent 8 years
working on Life Star before deciding to devote himself to keeping alive 65-year-old
studs like me. I think he made me a new
aorta out of a garden hose and a sweet potato before they sent me up to the
cardiac care unit. Never travel without
a guy like that on call. My son, major
star angel, stayed with me the first night and became pretty efficient at
playing with the IV’s, getting me to the toilet without flashing the young
nurses through my hospital issue gown and other important stuff. He is sort of the MacGyver type also…I mean
it, do not leave home without these kinds of folks available on short
notice. Jeff was replaced by a
sweetheart named Courtney, I think she spoke northern, but that may have been
the drugs. Courtney worked hard to get me
out of pain at a time when “pain free” didn’t seem to be in the cards. Next morning Courtney was replaced by Collene
(Sounds like Jollene) and that was truly one day of hell. My chest felt as if all the folks not getting
seen on time in the ER were doing a protest march on my sternum, tubes gurgled
in and out, and if I got the least bit comfortable someone decided it would be
a good time to see if they could squeeze one more drop of blood out of a
bruised finger or add another IV to the impressive array I was collecting on my
body. If hell is ultimately about a
matter of the heart, and I think it is, I got as much play on what a bad heart
will get you as I ever want to see. The
physical is no laughing matter and I know that the spiritual issues are at least
as damaging. I am very suspicious that
in that final eternal moment the spiritual pain will be every bit as
excruciating and will not be navigated with narcotics. Gotta say I want no part of that. They have got to redesign those hospital
gowns, I am pretty sure I mooned everyone who walked through the room that
night though I never got a second glance, I
am guessing it was the shave job?
Collene, I wasn’t kidding, I am in love with you. What an angel, she gave me pills, pushed
drugs into my IVs and battled all day to get me out of pain. Somewhere about noon that day I got amazing
relief from the pain and I actually began to think there might be hope for survival. I vowed my undying love to
Collene and would gladly have given her a kiss to prove it, but I must have
done or said something under the influence of all those drugs, she kept a
pretty wide birth until change of shift.
Jan stayed with me the second night so I tried not to flirt
with all the nurses. Besides, the pain started to kick back in and ruined the
mood. There is nothing like your wife
angel when things get bad…and mine is top drawer. The woman who sticks by you in these kinds of
things is a keeper, I hope you know that. Day three started like day two with awful pain
that nurse Ratchet seemed a little too cautious to attack head on and it was
all I could bare. Thankfully Collene
gave me a second chance and came back for another go at me. It a fairly short time she had me believing
again. I swear I do love that woman. I was getting nauseous and my bowels were in
some kind of uproar protesting everything so Collene, that sweet thing,
suggested a suppository for some relief.
Well I tell you, I got some relief all right, but that bathroom will
never be the same. And that Collene? I
told you she was smart and sweet, she delegated all that toilet duty stuff to
my son, so as not to embarrass me I am sure.
Day four someone turned up the lights and down the
pain. All the meds started working and
the required stroll to the elevators and back became something looked forward
to rather than dreaded. Eric and “activity”
Betsy were my rehab angels, big smiles, big muscles and gentle hands both
stellar folks. Day four they began to take
out tubes instead of adding them to my impressive array and I began to get
encouraging words from everyone about it looking like I might get my chest tube
out and go home the next day. “We just
need to get the chest tube out,” they would say and then turn away quickly and
begin to hum America the Beautiful or something. Suspicious how no one wanted talk about removing chest tubes, but that was for tomorrow and how
bad can tomorrow be when you’ve made it this far, right? Another angel, my daughter Sarah, stayed that
night to watch over me. I behaved my
self and didn’t subject her to toilet purgatory. She has no idea what I saved her from.
Day five, Dr. D shows up with the great news, my chest tube
is coming out, (America the Beautiful, remember?) and if my x-ray looks normal
I get to go home. Now remember I warned
you about this account being written under the influence of drugs, but you
should know that this next part is totally factual. There are no embellishments of any of the
details. The RN showed up to remove the
chest tubes wearing six inch stiletto heels and leather pants with some sort of
wild upper garment which I cannot describe due to the immediate sharp pains I
began to feel when she stepped onto my chest. Her job was to hold my chest down while the
PA did her best to turn me inside out using the fire hose stuck in my chest. That ole tube had apparently developed a
pretty intimate relationship with the inside of my chest and was very reluctant
to move on to bigger and better things.
The RN danced, the PA pulled, and somewhere down the hall someone played
America the Beautiful, then just when I was sure the gates of hell were about
to burst open, it was over. Robbie and
Phil had warned me it would not be the highlight of my stay and whooee were
they right. Now I’m a dentist and I
cannot begin to tell you the stories I’ve heard about root canals…I promise
you, not in the same ball park. Ms.
Martha the RN is a jewel, but whoee she wears a mean pair of heels. Of course it took longer to get the final
x-ray and discharge than we would have liked, but it gave us time to say our
good byes to a bunch of wonderful folks and take one last trip to the elevator
and back.
I woke up this morning in my own bed, no tubes protruded from
my body and my dear wife was lying beside me.
The dawn was magnificent; the coffee smelled wonderful, the walk was
invigorating. I am an extremely blessed
man and God is good… Thanks be to God and to all His angels.
**The first draft of this blog was written the morning of
March 8 as it says. My sweet wife
convinced me after a first reading that I might want to let it sit and do a
rewrite once I was no longer taking drugs.
I must admit she was probably right, I just hope my current lucidity has
not altered any of the facts.
***For those reading this blog who are of that company of angels who have and continue to walk with us, you have my undying gratitude. Your presence, prayers, cards, texts, calls, food, and friendship will never be forgotten. It might seem crazy to say, but it has been true for me, "Visiting hell in the presence of Angels is a taste of heaven." I love and appreciate you all.
