Memento Mori II in General

Memento Mori II

So here we are two days later. I tried to go to the beach today, but they are limiting access, and the entrance was blocked. There is another way to the beach, down by the fort, but there are not many parking spots and they were all full.

Well anyway, it was a nice drive.

So, where were we? Oh yeah, public catheterization.

It was almost comical. The nurses use a computerized bladder ultrasound to measure the amount of urine in your bladder. Arbitrary rules say anything more than 200 ML you get catheterized.

Hottie nurse pulls up my Johnnie, ultrasounds my bladder and declares I have 400 ML and if I don’t pee more that 200 ML I get the tube. And I have absolutely no urge to urinate.

So up goes the tube, draining 300 ML. Then out comes the bladder ultrasound and I now have 800 ML of urine.

I tell her machine is defective. Because there is no way my kidneys created 700 ML of urine in ten minutes.

And the torture continued. Oh, in the meanwhile I find out I have been having episodes of Atrial Fibrillation, I have a Pleural Effusion in my right lung. And my sodium levels are dangerously low. So they start limiting my water consumption. Which really helps my mood.

Let’s back up to me sitting up post-op and being asked if I remember waking up during surgery. I didn’t. I haven’t told my sister because she has twice woken up during surgery and it absolutely freaks her out. And I didn’t remember it.

So there I am in recovery. I have three chest tubes in. I also have a external pacemaker glued to my chest with wires sticking into my heart. On top of that I have an EKG set of leads stuck where, well they put EKG leads. A sending unit was living in the front pocket of that ridiculous Johnnie.

The three chest tubes were draining into a container, which was take to the lab, spun, and my red blood cells were put back in my IV. When explained to me, I think I said something like “How very efficient!”

My surgeon had neglected to explain to me that they would be collapsing my right lung to make room to work. But that explained the Pleural Effusion. The fact that most of your hearts electrical system comes in through your aorta explains why my heart was confused and started with the AFIB bullshit, which I have to say is a very distinct feeling.

While I was in the hospital I was pissed, but in hindsight being explained what was going to happen post-op would not have changed a thing. My surgeon does this for a living. I assume he realized over-explaining does no good.

For almost six days I chomped at the bit to go home. Got catheterized repeatedly. Ordered my own food and believe me I had no appetite – I did not eat anything for three days and then the nurses brow beat me into ordering food. First post-op meal was a two-egg cheese omelet, a half a bagel, four ounces of orange juice and coffee. I only gagged four times.

The most satisfying meal was a hamburger and a chocolate chip cookie.

Meanwhile the whole time I am in the CICU I had to pee into a measuring container so they can ensure I am pissing out everything I am taking in. That continued for two weeks after coming home. I have two bathrooms and I had to remember to bring the frigging container to the upstairs bathroom, lest I have to go downstairs to relieve myself in the middle of the night.

So, the embarrassing catheterizations continue. My surgeon visits every morning and I tell him I need to go home. He tells me ‘we are going to keep you for another day.” I spiral around the drain.

Monday he tells me “We are going to keep you for another day.” My hottie nurse comes in and uses her bullshit ultrasound and tells me unless I urinate, here comes the tube. At that point I have not slept more that a half hour at a time.

Something weird happened in my head. I pulled out my IVs (not realizing I had a multiport in my neck), changed my clothes, packed my bag, and headed for the elevator before waking up from whatever trance I was in. I went back and sat on the bed, hit the call button and said “something is really wrong with me.”

I think every nurse in the CICU showed up. They had me take off my civies, reinserted the IVs. The funny thing is I had an IV and a multiport in my left arm, and an IV in my right. The multiport in my neck. And they were not connected to anything.

I was swarmed by nurses for a few hours, and eventually started to fall asleep. At 2300 a male nurse arrived and rolled me off my side. One of the EKG leads had come disconnected, setting off an alarm in the nurse’s station.

Once reconnected, I tried to go back to sleep. Which eluded me until it didn’t.

At 0200 Jess came in to take vitals. Yes my hottie nurse had a name. Again, I was laying on my side so she tried to convince me to roll onto my back.

I vaguely remember laying there while she ran through the Jess litany – Close your left eye close your right eye, smile, stick out your tongue.

Apparently I seemed confused, so she asked me “Do you know where you are?”

“Not one clue.” I literally had no idea where I was, or why. For a few minutes I convinced myself I was on a spaceship, waking up from extended cryosleep. I wrote a story about that once. I knew my name, and I knew my birthday.

I didn’t know Jess’s name until she answered her phone: “This is Jess.”

Then she asked me if knew her name. Truth is, until she answered her phone I couldn’t have answered the question.

True to form though I answered “Of course, you’re Jess.” Then “How dumb would I have to be to not know your name after you just answered your phone and said your name.”

They sent me to the basement. First MRI ever. Head MRI. Checking to make sure I hadn’t had a stroke. Memory was coming back and I was cooperating. I started having this feeling I was never going to get out of that goddamned hospital. I was in the elevator heading back to the CICU when I decided if I couldn’t fall back asleep, all these ports and IVs were coming out and I was going to escape and call my dad in the morning. By then it was almost 5AM

I fell asleep for an hour. My surgeon came in and said I could go home. Six hours later I was stumbling toward the OSCO pharmacy at the Cook’s Corner Shaw’s. Dad dropped me off at the door, and I almost made it to the pharmacy before “bonking.” There was no place to sit, so I just stood there.

I picked up the dozen or so prescriptions I would be on for a month, holding onto the counter at the pharmacy for dear life. I made my way back to the door. Luckily Dad had found a parking spot pretty close to the door.

On the way home he said “I wasn’t sure if I should have let you go in there by yourself.”

I didn’t say what I was thinking: “Nope, probably not.”

Once home dad proceeded to water my plants while I sorted my meds. Dad and Sis2 had brought a recliner from their basement and rearranged my living room. Only problem being it is a leatherette recliner, and leatherette makes my skin crawl, so I had to find a blanket to cover it. And a pillow.

After Dad left, I slumped on the recliner clutching the pillow to my chest lest I coughed. The next few weeks were misery, because I weened myself off the pain meds and barely slept.

My parents and my sister came over to keep me company. Where they would find me with the TV on, the iPad in hand reading something on Kindle, rewinding whatever was on TV because while I can multitask, I cannot multitask well.

The second day home I started walking outside. Unfortunately, June in Maine this year was unusually hot. So, I plotted my expeditions. “If I can get to the shade under that tree and back, I am good.”

I am still hesitant to walk too far from home. Because I never know when the “bonk” is going to happen. It can’t be understated how much fucking energy it takes to recover from major surgery, You are walking along just fine, then the gas tank is empty.

This far down the road I have to say I am at 90%. Still with the twinges, and the incision site is still sore, but I am figuring our that is my sternum that is sore. Last few showers I have given the incision a decent scrub, so that isn’t hurting. I asked my cardiologist how long?

Up to a year.

Memento Mori. “Remember, you too will die…”

Last updated August 20, 2020