Hi All,
Ah, I feel like I've finally emerged from the post-surgery fog and can think straight enough to write. Nice!
The plan had been to get this surgery done on this last Monday. It wasn't an emergency, but having the pacing wire turned off was making me feel awful. Back to how been feeling all month-exhausted, dizzy, nauseas, lousy. So my doc wanted to correct this asap. But when Monday rolled around, we awoke to a lovely blanket of beautiful snow. Ooops.
As you might expect, Seattleites don't drive very well on snow (you may not know that they also don't drive that well in rain, but I digress). The hospital called and asked if we could postpone until Tuesday, as half of their staff couldn't come in. We said that was no big deal, and instead went in on Tuesday for the big day.
I was very familiar with the procedure by this point (this being my 3rd go round) so we whipped through the prep stuff and then I was wheeled off to try this again.
When I found out I was going to have this correction, I though they would cut a small hole in my 3 inch incision site and fix it from here. No, that would be too easy I guess. They cut the whole incision open again, and got to work.
As a note, my doc said when she saw the xray from my ER trip, she was pretty shocked. Not only had the pacing wire gone rougue and landed at my diaphragm, the entire casing of Sparky 2.0 had rotated 45 degrees. She had never seen one move out of place so badly.
As I learned that, I wondered if perhaps she wasn't at her most focused when she put in Sparky 2.0. Maybe she put on an episode of Grey's Anantomy for some inspiration, but got distracted by Dr. Yang's new career choice as a bartender who shakes more than just martinis. Who's to say? Or maybe when I got out of surgery last week and my shoulder felt just fine, I shouldn't have been whipping that arm around at da club. Hahahaha. Me at the club- hilarious. But I think I was pretty liberal with the arm moving, because it didn't really hurt. Oh well, who know's what happened, but I was ready to get it fixed.
The worst part of this surgery was because my blood pressure was so low (like around 75/30 instead of my normal 95/55), my doc couldn't use any sedation for the surgery. Just local anesthetic. The pain wasn't too terrible, but I felt every tug and heard way too much. The sounds of surgery are not comforting to the recipient of said surgery. I held it together and then started to freak out, but she got done right when I couldn't take it much more. Because everything was so messed up, the one hour procedure turned into 3 very tiring hours. When the doc finished, she had replaced the rougue wire, repositioned Sparky 2.0, and stiched him in.
Recovery was definately harder than last time. I felt like I'd been hit by a very small truck. But that's the way I felt after I got Sparky 1.0, so I took that as a good sign. I've spent this week resting a lot, but doing more every day. Today I almost feel normal! It's SO good.
Wanna hear one of the coolest things? Last week I told you that even with Sparky 2.0, I was feeling the pacing at least a few hours a day. Not painful, just uncomfortable and annoying. Well- no more!! Sparky paces me 100% of the time now, and I don't feel a thing! My doc thought that would happen and I'm so pleased.
Another awesome change is that my heart now feels warm! I didn't even realize that my chest and heart always felt cold in the last month, but I can tell such a difference. I also feel a lot more clear-headed (blood to the brain is a plus, I always say).
So all in all, I'm so happy with this decision. I think constant pacing was just what I needed. They say this won't increase my ejection fraction, but maybe this what they mean when they say you can start feeling a bit better even if your ejection fraction doesn't move. It's encouraging and making me very optimistic for this next year.
I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving! We were sad we couldn't be with family, but Christmas is just around the corner. See you then!
Love to you all,
Jana
snow
Jana,
ReplyDeleteI have been a friend of Nick's mom and dad for many years. I have been following your blog for a while and I must tell you I think you and Nick are so courageous and handling this as well as anyone could. Think about writing a book someday. You have everything documented and your personality comes through beautifully. I hope you and Nick get to have things calm down and have a wonderful Christmas.