POST OP - Days 1 and 2

 

The first couple of days after surgery were spent in the intensive care unit of the hospital.  I thought the ICU would be a room with interior glass windows or glass walls so everything could be easily seen and observed.  In reality it was located in a round shaped building with a doctors/nurses station as the hub and pie-shaped rooms around the circumference.  My recollection from those two days is hazy at best.  I recall big bright lights, many people, they seemed very tall, hovering around my bed.  Darryl was allowed to visit but only for a few minutes at a time.  I don't know if the limited visitation was for his benefit or mine.  Really, just how long can you stand there staring at your loved one who is pretty much in a comatose state, devoid of color, with swollen eyes, a puffy face and is hooked up to machines which makes communication impossible? 

I remember a loud alarming siren sound with people saying it was a fire alert false alarm.  From time to time the intercom would blast CODE BLUE, CODE BLUE.  At other times it would play a sweet version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or the alphabet song on chimes.  I later learned that this was piped through the whole hospital and every time a baby was born the parents activated the switch to play the joyous little melody as an expression of the cycle of life, apparently to offset  the grimness of the Code Blue announcements. 

At one point Darryl was standing at the foot of my bed along with several others.  I understood them to be discussing my breathing tube.  Before going to the hospital I expressed to Darryl about how much I hated having to endure the breathing tube down my trachea and the scope down my esophagus.  Other times when this was done I was left with a killer sore throat for at least two weeks.  My thinking was that the sooner they removed it the better.  Lying there I became paranoid that with Darryl advocating for early removal of the tube, it would be taken out too soon and I would die.  I was thinking about that whole living will thing. I desperately wanted to tell Darryl that I changed my mind and the breathing tube was no longer an issue, but with all that stuff down my throat I couldn't communicate.   I was also remembering how the psychiatrist told me to handle my anxiety about it.  He said if I could remain cool and calm then everything could be handled in a more timely manner.  Cool and calm quickly fell by the wayside as I tried to think of ways to communicate with Darryl.  Making hand motions and flailing my arms wasn't working.  Everyone was looking more  confused.  After I made writing motions with my hand someone brought me a pen and paper.  That didn't work either because I was unable to get the words from my mind to come out through the pen.  The  paper showed only scratch marks.   I felt my only alternative was to put a death grip on the tube so they would know I didn't want it removed.  Someone pried my hands loose and that’s all I remember.  The next time I came to, I was breathing on my own.  

I really wanted to talk to someone about those pie-shaped rooms, but no one seemed interested, that's until the cleaning lady came in.  When I mentioned it, she stopped pushing her Swiffer WetJet in mid-stride, looked around the room and told me she'd been cleaning those rooms for seven years and she had never noticed that.  She then gave me the biggest smile I had seen in days.  It made me feel good to know I may have given her a whole new perspective on those rooms that just might get her through another seven years. 

My chest had a big bandage down the middle.  There were loose wires protruding through my skin that were attached to a temporary pacemaker that would be pulled out when the time was ready.  Two tubes protruded from my lower chest that were draining blood and fluid into a large container.  Probes were attached to a half-dozen places on my chest that connected to a heavy little heart monitor box that was tucked into the breast pocket of my hospital gown.  I was hooked up to a catheter and I had IV's dripping stuff into my arms.  Then they told me I had to get up and walk.  Walk?  Surely they were kidding.  They might as well have asked me to climb Mount Kilimanjaro.  They weren't kidding.  They said no one gets out of ICU until they can walk.  I was thinking I could be there for a very long time.  Darryl said he didn't mind how long I stayed because they had some really good-looking nurses.  After much prodding I got myself to a somewhat vertical stance and with a cart carrying all the stuff attached to my body I took my first steps.  With all that stuff pulling inward on my chest there was no way I could stand up straight.  Believe me, this was a very pathetic looking walk.  After making my way around the nurses station and back to my pie-shaped room, I felt deserving of at least a fake plastic Olympic medal.  Yeah me!   I was relieved to know I had to do that only one time.  My next trek would be out of the ICU to the elevator.  So what do they have against using wheel chairs?  They kept reminding me that no one leaves ICU until they can walk out.  I wanted to know just how far away this elevator was and what happened after I reached it.  They said a gurney would be waiting that would take me to the heart care center on another floor of the hospital.  By the end of my second day in ICU wearing my butt exposing bile green hospital gown I make my exodus.