Greetings from Tufts Medical Center. The bleeding from Wednesday’s incision has been relentless. It’s been a bloody hell for me, my boyfriend/nurse Michael, and my clothing.
I just took this photo as I am waiting for them to start an IV and re-suture the incision.
Bloody hell! Which look do you prefer?
Yesterday, my 12th day after open heart surgery, I fell asleep and had a dream of being lifted suddenly by unseen hands and carried, very rapidly, as I lay flat on my back, through many rooms and hallways. In the dream, I thought, “Oh no! Ghosts are taking me away!” I screamed in the dream, the dream faded, and I woke up in my bed at home.
Somewhat of an expert on dreams (because I’m a psychotherapist), I asked myself, “What did that dream mean?” And I realized the dream captured the dreamlike experience of being wheeled down hospital hallways into operating rooms, which has happened to me more times than you could possibly dream between the ages of 10 and 63.
Then, I got ready for my dream of a friend, Carol, to pick me up and carry me to my appointment at the Coumadin/Warfarin clinic at Tufts Medical Center in Boston, to find out if I would be able to eat all the foods of my dreams on this new medication. The nurse there, Kathleen, was a dream, as she allayed my fears and told me I would probably be able to eat whatever I wanted (including chocolate!), as long as I did so consistently.
Then, I told Carol I wanted to drop in on members of my Cardiology Dream Team at Tufts Medical Center, who hadn’t yet seen me since my surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota on September 21. I assumed my appearance would exceed their wildest dreams. And while most patients wouldn’t dream of dropping in unexpectedly on their doctors, my cardiologist Dr. Mark Estes has demonstrated (see my previous dreamy blog post here), that he is fine with my doing that.
The next hour was like a dream. Dr. Mark Estes showed up trailed by five students and told me I looked like a dream — better than he had ever seen me in our decades of working together. I told Dr. Estes that I might have been dreaming, but I thought I had heard various people at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota state that my heart was in a normal/sinus rhythm after the operation, instead of its usual atrial fibrillation.
Let me explain why my heart going out of atrial fibrillation and into normal/sinus rhythm, even for a limited amount of time, would be a very unlikely dream come true.
So when I told Dr. Estes yesterday that I thought I had heard people at the Mayo Clinic say that I was out of a-fib after my surgery, he looked like he thought I was dreaming. He said, “Ann, if your heart DID get back into sinus rhythm post surgery, that would have lasted for a very short time. I am skeptical it happened at all.”
And then everybody — Dr. Estes, the students, Carol, me, and others — watched yesterday, as if in a dream, as we accessed the data stored in my pacemaker/defibrillator to see what kind of rhythms my dreamy heart had been generating recently, when I’ve been awake and dreaming.
As if in a dream, my dream team cardiologist, Dr. Mark Estes, announced to all of us: “You’re in sinus rhythm. And you’ve been out of a fib and in normal rhythm consistently since your surgery on September 21.”
I responded, “My boyfriend Michael would call this a Christmas miracle.” I heard Carol say, dreamily and sweetly, “Today is the Jewish New Year.” Everybody looked happy, like in a dream or in a special on the Hallmark Movie Channel where the heroine does better than anybody dreamed possible.
How did this better-than-anybody-could-possibly-have-dreamed result occur? I have a dreamy memory of a discussion, last week, with a Mayo Clinic EKG technician, who told me I was in normal/sinus rhythm when he visited me in the Intensive Care Unit. Perhaps, we speculated, when they stopped my heart and then restarted it after the open heart surgery, that helped my heart’s rhythm — just how we often fix our phones, computers, and other devices by turning them off and turning them back on again. Sometimes, the simplest solution works better than our wildest dreams.
After this dream of a visit with Dr. Estes, Carol carried me away in her car and drove me home to my dreamy boyfriend Michael. I told him the good news, as if in a dream. Later, when I shared the good news with my dreamy 18-year-old son, Aaron — far far away in the dreamy land of Scotland — Aaron texted me: “It sounds like a magical fairy wonderland situation over there.”
Magical and MUCH better than the scary dream that started out my dream of a day, yesterday.
I also want to say, at this point in this dreamy post, that it’s very possible that my dream of a heart with its shiny new valve might go back into atrial fibrillation — tomorrow, next week, or some other point in the future. However, I wouldn’t dream of lowering my heart’s expectations right now — that heart of mine has exceeded everybody’s dreams for sooooooo long.
When I was dreaming under general anesthesia last week at the Mayo Clinic, my surgeon played dreamy music by our favorite saxophonist, the late Michael Brecker. On this dreamy day, 13 days later, here is one of my favorite tunes by Dreams, the 1970s dream team of Michael Brecker, his brother and trumpet-player Randy Brecker, the dreamily fabulous drummer Billy Cobham, dreamy bassist Will Lee, and other dreamily amazing jazz musicians.
Because my readers appreciate photos I take beyond my wildest dreams, here are all the dreamy images I captured yesterday:
You know what? Yesterday still feels like a dream to me …. too good to be true. And I don’t have any photos showing Dr. Estes, the medical students, Carol, Kathleen the nurse, or any of other people I dreamily wrote about in this post.
So …. maybe it was all a dream?
What do you think, my dreamy readers?
Dreamy thanks to all those who helped me create this dream of a post and to you — of course! — for whatever dreams you bring, here and now.
Today’s post title was inspired by a greeting card I saw, yesterday, during my first trip to a supermarket since my open heart surgery on September 21.
This warm blogger is sincere when she reassures her readers that yesterday’s trip to the supermarket was appropriately short and sweet. Also, I had two warm and sincere people accompanying me for support — my short friend Deb and my tall boyfriend Michael.
Today’s blog post needs to be short and sweet, my warm and sincere readers, because my sincerely awesome friend Carol will soon be taking me to a warm Warfarin/Coumadin clinic, as I sweetly work my way toward the right dosage of that medication while also eating the sweet, sour, and warm food I sincerely prefer.
Do any of my other photos from yesterday seem short, sweet, warm, and/or sincere?
For all of my readers who are celebrating the Jewish New Year today, here‘s a short and sweet, warm and sincere video:
If you leave a short and sweet comment, I will reply warmly.
Short and sweet thanks to all who helped me create today’s post and to you — of course! — for visiting, here and now.
Sincerely,
Ann
Yesterday, the doctors and nurses at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota kept asking me variants of today’s blog title:
Did you even have heart surgery?
I’m surprised they had to ask, because we’ve been planning this valve-replacement surgery for me since last May, and you would think the amazing staff at such an esteemed institution would know whether a patient actually had a scheduled procedure, as I did on Wednesday.
Maybe they were asking whether I had really had heart surgery because:
I will answer the question in today’s title as follows:
Did you even have heart surgery?
Yes! And I am so grateful.
Do these look like photos taken by somebody who had major heart surgery less than a week ago?
This person who had heart surgery and her caring caregiver, Michael, will be flying over the territories shown in that last photo. If we hit any air turbulence, I’m sure I’ll know I had heart surgery, even if nobody else can tell.
Did you even read this blog post today? Please let me know, in a comment below.
What you need to know first about this post is that it was inspired by this patient publication from the Mayo Clinic, which I was reading yesterday:
What you need to know about me, right now, is:
What you need to know is that I always try to make a grreat choice for music in my blog posts.
What you need to know is that when I first understood, four months ago, that I needed to have heart valve replacement surgery performed at the Mayo Clinic, I created this YouTube video about that and shared it in a previous blog post:
You need to know that I’m more reconciled to heart valve replacement surgery today than I was when I first sang that song on May 31.
Anything you need to know or to express, here and now?
What you need to know is that I appreciate every one who helped me create today’s post and you — of course! — no matter what you need to know, today.
I’ve been wondering a lot lately about what’s down the road for me, especially regarding my very unusual heart. After years of walking down a life’s road where several doctors have disagreed about what we should do about my aging, sturdy, reversed-road heart, I’ve decided to have valve replacement surgery at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
I’m still wondering what’s down the road for me and my unusual heart, because there’s a chance that the surgery will make things worse for me down the road.
Yesterday, I wrote an email to my long-time-on-my-road cardiologist, Dr. Deeb Salem, about my wish to ask Dr. Carole Warnes, the Mayo cardiologist, for some numbers and data about that possibly down-the-road negative outcome.
Seems like here are some questions to ask her:
What are the chances the ejection fraction will go down with the valve replacement surgery ? If it does, what are the chances it will go up again?
Are you wondering what was down the road in that email exchange? Dr. Salem replied, like so:
I doubt that she will have an answer to your question.
Further down that same email road, I wrote back to Dr. Salem:
Some of the most profound questions in the universe have no answers.
A wee bit down that email road, here was Dr. Salem’s response:
…….yet
Did you ever wonder what was down the road for you? I can tell you what’s down the road in today’s blog post.
Photos!
Are you wondering what’s next on this blogging road?
Music!
First, “The Long and Winding Road.”
Next, “Ease on Down the Road.”
Finally, my boyfriend Michael’s favorite Down-the-Road song, “Road Runner.”
I wonder what comments are down the road for me today?
Red-brick-road thanks to all those who helped me down the road of today’s blog post and to you — of course! — for joining me on this road, here and now.
