Journal

I didn’t sleep much last night either (dreams, and just inability to sleep) but I’m feeling alright today. Typing is not easy to do, however, so not much blogging. Mainly I’ve been watching TV/DVDs and reading magazines.

I’m not sure whether it’s the heart surgery or the Vicodin I’m on, or some terrible combination of both, but I just had two of the most horrible nightmares I’ve ever had. Something is seriously wrong. There is no way I’m going to sleep again tonight.

I’ve been home since this afternoon trying to take it easy. Just for the record, typing with a large chest incision is NOT FUN and I won’t be doing a whole lot of it for a while. Owwww! When Stephanie said earlier that my incision looks really good, she of course meant that in the relative sense. Because it’s really not pretty or anything. You wouldn’t want to put ribbons in its hair and go out for a Sunday drive with it. And lets not talk about the coughing fits at all.

Steph’s home! And yes, she’s already reading her e-mail. 🙂

So I get a phone call at lunchtime (I went in to work for a few hours this morning): “Dr. Beckman just came in and he said I can go home!” “WHAT?! Oh, my God!” I hurried to Steph’s house to pick out clothes for her to come home in and rushed over to the hospital. Then her heart started beating irregularly and they decided to keep her another night.
They determined that the irregular heartbeat was not serious and was a common thing on the third day after surgery. Basically, her heart is all swollen and upset and “angry” because the doctors went in there and messed with it, so the swelling is getting in the way of the electrical pulses that tell it when to beat. They gave her some new drugs and hooked her up to telemetry, in which she wears a little transmitter that shows her heartbeat on a screen in a room across the hospital that’s always monitored.
In other news, Steph beat me at movie trivia this afternoon, 18-17. Loud Talker Guy is coughing a lot today (loudly, of course), so I felt bad for him, but I still shut Steph’s door for a while. And if you’re ever in the hospital at Methodist and you feel like ordering a beef burrito, I hear they’re spicy.

The brochure they gave Steph before the surgery said that she’d walk 50 feet three times today. She actually walked 250 feet three times. She got more tubes out again, too. Her color is better again, and she’s talking a lot more. She’s still pretty tired, but I hope she’ll sleep better tonight. I asked the nurse to keep her door closed so she wouldn’t hear Loud Talker Guy next door. Earlier she considered yelling at him to shut up from bed, but she decided not to. 🙂

I talked to Steph just now. They put the phone closer to her bed so she could use it. She walked already this morning (!) and had some breakfast, and the doctor just came to see her and said she’s doing well. She sounds better again today, and she said she feels pretty good, although she didn’t get much sleep because some guy down the hall was talking all night.

When I got to the hospital this morning, the nurse told me that Steph had already had some Jell-O and broth for breakfast and they were going to put her in the chair soon and take some tubes out. After she got up into the chair, they had me help give her a bath, which was a little scary because I didn’t want to hurt her. She said it felt good. She got to see her incision for the first time, and it looks good. Then she had some lunch — French toast and cream of wheat.
Even more tubes came out, and they moved her to a regular room in mid-afternoon, far earlier than we expected. She dozed a lot today but didn’t feel like she got much sleep, and she had a pretty bad episode of pain around dinnertime. They put her sleep apnea machine on her for tonight, and that should help her get some rest.
Several people came to visit again today, and we also got a report that Spike is being a good boy. Dan and Doug made Steph a big get-well poster for everyone to sign. Be sure to write something if you stop by.

I woke up early this morning because I had a dream that they wouldn’t tell me how Steph was doing, so I called to check on her (the nurse told me last night that I could). She’s doing really well, and they were already done with all her morning stuff. She had some clear liquids, too, and they were working on deep breathing and coughing. The nurse said that she’ll probably get solid food today (yay, Jell-O!) and that she might even move out of intensive care tonight. I’ll get to see her again at 9:30 this morning.
I forgot to mention the weather yesterday. Steph told me that whenever she’s really upset, major weather happens. Those fourth of July storms in 2003 were because of her appendix. Remember the tornadoes in September 2002? Her cat Idgie died that day. So yes, in case you were wondering, the amazing hail that covered the ground around Butler University and up through Castleton with chunks of ice was her doing.

Just a quick update before I run back to the hospital — Steph’s
surgery went really well this morning. They were able to repair her
mitral valve, which sounds (from the surgeon’s description) like it was
even more damaged than they previously thought. There is no leak
remaining at all, which is wonderful.
We got to see Steph at about 12:30, but she wasn’t awake yet. They told
us that she would wake up within the next six hours or maybe even more,
but when we went back in at 1:15, she was awake already! By 4:00, her
breathing tube was out and she was talking a little, though she remains
very groggy because of the pain meds. (She’s having some really
interesting dreams.) At 6:00 they let her have some ice chips, which
made her very happy, and she may yet get to have some liquid tonight.
I’ll try to send another update tomorrow. Thank you all for all the
good thoughts, prayers, and positive energy — it helped a lot. She’s
quite a trooper.