CRACK - Day 5

May 6, 2016

 So, the excuses begin.

I didn't post anything yesterday as we spent considerable time in a St Francis emergency "pod" dealing with Jo's badly sprained ankle. When we finally got home, we both crashed for quite a while, and then we had some very important TV to watch. So...

Actually, Jo was doing better today with her ankle, but may have walked around too much as it was hurting her more later tonight.

I feel a little bit like a condemned prisoner who knows when he will be getting his deadly vaccinations. Now note, I wrote "a little bit." I don't equate my pending surgery with a nearing execution. It's just having the date looming before me feels like I'm in a kind of limbo. There are things I can't do and others I shouldn't do. While I know the aftermath will likely be painful, and the recovery probably maddeningly slow, I still can't quite imagine what it will be like. 

I've never spent a night in a hospital except, I assume, the few days after my birth. I've had a couple of scopes on my knees and a few other minor procedures, but never anything on the scale of having my chest cracked open, and being placed on a heart/lung machine during what I've been informed is a 4 to 6 hour operation. I was told that they will not stop my heart during the procedure, which they say is a fairly new thing. Traditionally, they do stop the heart so that they are not trying to graft an artery onto a moving target, but apparently they've figured out how to overcome that particular problem. The surgeon said that stopping the heart creates problems in not only restarting it, but getting it back up to speed, or up to rhythm, or whatever. The heart, and, consequently, the patient tends to be sluggish for some time after having it stopped.

I'm still kind of ambivalent about the whole thing. That it's still more than 2 weeks away, renders it all kind of unreal. I suppose the closer I get to it, the more it will take over my thoughts, and influence my days.

I know hundreds of thousands of people have had bypass surgery, so I'm certainly not unique. But, as I suggested above, the experience will be unique to me. 

I've had a few thoughts reflecting on my circumstances, on my life's successes and failures. I have to admit that success has not visited my life a great deal. My greatest "successes" are my marrying Joan Marie Mascari, and our having and raising our two sons. I love all three of them more than I can say.

As I get nearer to the ceremonial chest cutting, I believe that at least some parts of my life will come swimming through my head. While there has been a lot of good, a lot of happy times, there have also been dark ones as well. All of it may be worth pondering. 

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