Another update

[outsdr]

Hello!

I continue to improve. I'm doing cardiac rehab now (gentle exercises to strengthen my heart and lungs) which is going well, although it's frustrating how much they suck away my energy.

I'm hoping to return to work beginning of January. I don't want to go back until I'm as close to 100% as possible, because I know I'll end up driving myself hard to show everyone that I can still do the job just as well or even better than I did before the surgery.

Speaking off, here is a picture that was taken of the blood clot that was removed from my heart. I'm putting it behind a cut, because it is kinda gross.




Honestly, it's mind boggling to me that this came out of my heart; that I had open heart surgery; that I needed open heart surgery. It feels like it happened to someone else.

I'm also doing something I didn't think I was going to do: I'm writing down all my false memories of events that ocurred during my nearly two weeks of sedation. Writing them down is helping me work through them, and is helping me accept that they are not real, because a lot of them still feel very real. It's interesting that I'm noticeing a few corelations between things I remember and things that I'm told ocurred in the real world.

Comments

[dreamer-easy.livejournal.com]

*runs about waving her hands in horror*

Just got back from eight days nine nights in New Zealand. Very glad to know you're convalescing. Incredible to think you (or anyone else) could survive something like that. Have I told you that you must be made of old boots? It's compliment. You're tough.

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

New Zealand has always struck me as a great place to visit - the pictures I've seen are beautiful.

Every single health care worker I've met that helped me during surgery and after (and there's a LOT of them - it's like an entire hospital was concentrated on just caring for me!) they've all expressed how pleased they are to see me up and about, and that I look so much better, and how I should be dead.

It's truly difficult to wrap my head around. I mean, I went to the urgent care because I had a high fever and trouble breathing. I honestly thought I had bronchitis or at the worse pneumonia. To be whisked away for life-saving surgery that I possibly might not survive was the last thing on my mind (I think. My memories of the days before the surgery have still not returned, except for a few flashes.)

And thank you for the compliment. It takes one to know one. ;-)

[outsdr.livejournal.com]

And if you think the clot from my heart is impressive, the surgeon who pulled the clot out of my pulmonary artery was telling people how big it was like he was a fisherman- holding up his hands about a foot apart and saying, "It was THIS long!"