If you know me personally, you know that I am very concerned about my health and like to take a hands on approach to my health. I am practically a vegetarian, I work out all the time, I don’t smoke, or imbibe, and get plenty of sleep.
Now that the lies are out of the way. I eat meat, red meat, processed meat, cooked meat, charred meat, raw meat. I like meat, some meat doesn’t like me, but I still try to engage it in my lifestyle. I am lazy, so lazy that I will text my son or wife to get them to bring me a soda from the fridge. I would drive my car to my next door neighbours for a coffee date, if I knew my neighbours(too much work to get to know them). Coffee? Yes please! Sweet and creamy is the way to do it. (My grandma used to say that if you don’t drink your coffee black, you’re not man enough to drink coffee.) If I am not drinking coffee, I’m sucking back a soda, no diet soda here. I enjoy a good scotch on an almost nightly basis, not just one ounce, make it a triple please. Cigarettes? NO thanks, hand me my cigar, a couple a day to compliment the scotch. Sleep? What sleep? In this I have to admit isn’t a choice, I’d get my prescribed amount of sleep if I could, but I suffer from Restless Leg Syndrome( does anyone enjoy RLS?).
I can remember a time when I could fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow, but I digress.
If anyone had mentioned to me that I would have open heart surgery, let alone before I was 50 I would have laughed in their face. My heart was that healthiest part of my body.
However through a series of events it came to be that I would have to have the surgery.
It all started back in July 2018, I felt I had heat stroke. I had worn jeans and long sleeve shirt on one of the hottest days of the year (so far), and I felt nauseous, fevered and chilled. However I stuck it out, I went to work and did my best to ignore the symptoms, they’ll go away on their own, eventually. Right?
Finally, a few days later I am still feeling terrible, Chills and fever just aren’t letting up. I call my GP and get in right away(usually it takes a week to see him). I see him, tell him the symptoms, and he writes a letter and tells me to get to the Urgent Care right away.
Off I go to the Urgent Care, Runningfawn in tow, I am certain it’s just an infection to be treated with antibiotics, Runningfawn is secretly fretting that it’s the worst. I get in to see their doctors, get blood tests taken. All this is done in a reasonable amount of time, a true testament to the quality of care offered to truly sick patients by our hospitals. I am given antibiotics, and told to go home, if it gets worse, see my GP.
Just after midnight the same day, I get a call from the Urgent Care Doctor telling me to get back in NOW. Apparently I had a massive blood infection and it needs a more intense treatment. The doctors from various different specialties examine every inch of my body, trying to find where I might have acquired my infection, all to no avail.
Thus I spent a week in the hospital with IV antibiotics and daily blood cultures being taken. Thankfully my infection wasn’t a resistant superbug. After the week of being poked and prodded continuously, I was given the all clear but to be certain they installed a PIC line right into my heart, I had to carry around a pump that provided antibiotics directly into my heart for six weeks.
The by-product of all this is that the infection had settled onto my aortic heart valve, and had eaten away at the leaflets and I had some regurgitation. The long term effects are potential enlarged heart as it tries to pump more blood to make up for the regurgitation, the short term effects are that I will be worn out more easily due to the inefficiency of my heart.
Several CT scans later the regurgitation is determined to be more severe than originally thought. Surgery is in my future, I will need a new heart valve.
I went back to work while waiting for the surgery but at times it was too much for me, so I went on disability for the foreseeable future, at least until after my surgery was done and I was healed.
February 2019 I had open heart surgery and they replaced my faulty heart valve with a fancy new mechanical valve. The down side to this is I am on blood thinners for the rest of my life.
The pain of having my chest ripped open and my innards being mucked with was intense. They placed wires on my heart to restart it if necessary, they took them out before I left the hospital, when they removed the wire to my heart it felt like it was wrapped around every major organ and was being dragged around my insides as it was pulled out.
I spent a week in the hospital hoping and praying that I wouldn’t cough or sneeze because the pain was excruciating. Even after leaving the hospital, which i received stellar treatment, I had to sleep on my back to allow my ribs to heal. I was given a heart shaped pillow that the awesome volunteers of TELUS sewed and provided at no cost, so that I could hug it tightly when I had to sneeze or cough which helps immensely with the pain.
July I went back to work and worked until the end of September until I determined that I couldn’t do my job well because my ribs still hadn’t healed. Even as I write this, it’s November and my ribs still pop and shift when I breath, nine months after my surgery.
I am now unemployed and looking for something better, less physical to do, hence writing my blog that I have long put off.
I have learned a lot from this whole chapter in my life, interestingly enough, I have had 2 doctors say I can still smoke my cigars in moderation but liquor is a no go because it impacts my blood thinners.
I could tell you that I learned that life is fleeting and you need to embrace it, but I think you already know that. Oh and Runningfawn was right, my infection was more sinister than just an infection. You heard me right, my wife was right. It’s not the first time, nor will it be the last time I’m certain.