The Aftermath

It felt like a truck ran over me. Not a little Datsun either; a big long haul, semi truck loaded up with lead bricks! They got me up to walk the day after surgery albeit VERY slowly. I started out the first couple of times with a nurse at my side; soon I was lapping the nurses station several times a day on my own.

I had a nurse in the ICU who was not much older than me. She told me that they don't get very many young people there after open heart surgery, so I was kind of special. She assured me she would take good care of me; she did and she felt like my guardian angel (yeah, yeah...I know I said I didn't believe in anything, but belief in God and belief in angels are completely different).

Because I was a somewhat "special" patient, they tended to bend the rules a bit for me. Visitation rules were only 2 visitors at a time, family only. At first they stuck to the two family members at a time rule. Then my friends from college came to visit. Maria, Joanne, Linda and of course Polly flew down from San Francisco to visit. My nurse came in, smiled and said "You're sisters are here to visit." Of course, NONE of them looked anything like me, but from that point on I had many sisters.

Three days after surgery, on Sunday, January 13, 1980 I turned 21 years old. The same young nurse who had been taking care of me was on duty that day and came in to tell me (with a smile and a wink) that my sisters were here to wish me a happy birthday. Maria, Joanne, Linda and Polly all walked in with a bottle of champagne for me (which I couldn't drink) and were on their way to a champagne brunch in my honor to celebrate my birthday (which I couldn't attend). They stayed long enough to make me laugh really hard (which really hurt) and then were off to celebrate.

Upon their return after brunch, I was moved out of the ICU to a regular room. Maria, Joanne, Linda and Polly came back from brunch in a VERY good mood, laughing at seemingly everything and proceeded to make me laugh until I almost cried from the pain. Everything they said seemed to be funny to them (happens when you drink that much champagne!) and I ended up laughing just as much. It was painful, but good medicine for me.

Later that morning they left for the airport to go back home. They were good for me and saying goodbye was really the first time during the whole ordeal I felt like crying. I didn't...because I NEVER cried in front of anyone back then, and anyway it would have hurt too much. It never ceased to amaze me that almost every little thing you do involves using your chest muscles in some way.

After that, my friend Dena was my most constant visitor. She came almost every day at least for a little while. I didn't have much of an appetite (considering the food...no big surprise. I was pretty much of a foodie even back then). One day while Dena was visiting, my surgeon came by to round on me. He was concerned that I wasn't eating. "If you are going to heal, you have to eat" he said. "Would you eat something if your friends brought you food you liked?"

"Yeah, I guess so" I remained unconvinced however. Nothing sounded appetizing. He pulled Dena aside and asked her to bring me whatever food I asked for, just as long as I ate it. I was thirsty all the time and fruit was the only thing I could think of that sounded even remotely appealing.

So the next day Dena brought a big basket of fruit; it had every kind of fruit imaginable. I picked out an orange because of the juice. It tasted great and I devoured it almost immediately. In hindsight, oranges may not have been the best thing to put in my empty stomach because of the acid. Within a short period of time I was in the bathroom throwing up. It felt like my chest was splitting back open it was so painful. After that, I pretty much shied away from any kind of food.

I was originally supposed to be in the hospital a total of 10 days. But by 5 days post surgery, they just didn't know what to do with me anymore. They had taken out my chest tubes and arterial lines and stitched up the incisions, intending to remove the stitches before I went home. I beat them to it and removed them on my own a few days later...they were itching. A nurse came in to take out my IV line, but got called away before she could remove it. Since she left her supplies at my bedside, I removed it for her. And since I was supposed to walk as much as possible, I began to stray farther and farther away from my nurses so that it became hard to track me down.

By hospital day 5, my surgeon came in early in the morning and asked me (rather begged me) if he let me go home, would I promise to eat? I assured him that I would (I would have sold my soul to get out of there!) and so early that afternoon, my dad came to pick me up and took me back to his house. He dropped me off at the front door, said he was going back to work but there were leftover tacos in the refrigerator if I was hungry. And he drove off. There I was just me and my suitcase standing on the front porch facing an empty house, alone again to face recovery. First thing I did was look for food. I realized at that moment I was ravenously hungry! I found the tacos, cold with congealed greasy hamburger meat and ate them without heating them. After the first taco went down, I ate the second without blinking and then a third. The only thing that stopped me from eating a fourth was the memory of the unfortunate post orange incident.

A week after my discharge I had a follow up appointment with my surgeon. He thought I was doing well and wanted to see me back in one month. I told him no, that wouldn't be possible, as I was going back up to college in the next few days. After he couldn't talk me out of it, he made me promise to find a cardiologist right away to be followed. I promised. As it turned out, Arcata and Eurkea, both small towns, didn't have any cardiologists. And so, I just didn't follow up with anyone.

A few weeks after surgery, Polly and Joanne were going cross country skiing. I wanted to go so badly it hurt (well not really but it ended up hurting a lot!). So I went a long with them for the ride up to Tahoe and sat in a cafe and watched them ski around a lake. After a while, Polly took pity on me and suggested that I stand behind her on her skis, hold on tight and she would ski me around a bit. Joanne thought this was a REALLY bad idea and said so over and over again.

Never ones to be dissuaded by little issues like safety, Polly and I went for it. Joanne stood by and covered her eyes while I got on the skis and Polly took off, gliding at first as best she could with an extra hundred pounds to tow. Joanne would look up every once in a while as we called out to her, but then would cover her eyes just sure that we would fall. And fall we did. Hard. So hard in fact that I felt a pop in my chest, and then another pop as the wires holding my sternum together broke open. I thought Joanne would have a stroke right then and there. Polly and I decided that that was enough fun for one day and we all piled back in the car to drive back to San Francisco. On the way home, I felt another pop in my chest. That left me with 3 out of 6 intact wires holding my sternum together. I thought maybe I should be a little more careful in the future. "Little" would turn out to be the key word, however.

After I got back up to college, I was too late to enroll in the Winter quarter. So I went back to work as a nurses aide at a very small 15 bed community hospital. I didn't have a doctor's release, and they didn't require one. A lot of the time, the doctors would pull me away to help with the really cool stuff in the emergency room, like suturing, nose bleeds, broken bones, etc. They knew I was interested in premed so they would let me do all kinds of things I wasn't qualified to do, like assist in emergency cesarean sections. That would never happen now, but back then, who was watching? Most of the time however, I was cleaning rooms and helping patients in and out of bed. Not the smartest move after open heart surgery, but I managed not to break any more sternal wires.

Polly and I had moved to a small town about one hour south of Humboldt State University. Polly got a job teaching there, and I wanted to be with Polly so we moved in together. The town was so small, that when I went in to open up a post office box, the post master already knew who I was. "So you're one of them women renting old man Parish's house, eh?" he said looking slightly askance at me.

"Yes" I said quite surprised since I hadn't even given him my name yet.

"You two related or something?" I knew where this was going. It was a VERY small town, in a fairly conservative area. We needed to fit in.

"Students" I said. "Can't afford a place on my own. You know how that is". Hoping that would pass, I got my post office box and hightailed it out of there before he could ask me too many more questions.

A few weeks later, I was driving home from Humboldt after registering for Spring quarter and I got a flat tire on the highway. I pulled over and started getting out my jack and tools to change the tire. I knew I wasn't supposed to change the tire, and I wasn't even sure I could change the tire. So I did the only smart thing I had done since surgery. I flagged down a man to help me. As he was placing the jack under my car I explained that I had just had open heart surgery and wasn't supposed to be lifting or pulling anything heavy.

"Open heart surgery?" he stood up fast and back away with a somewhat panicked look in his eyes. "I don't want to be involved in case anything happens. Listen lady, I don't know anything about medicine." And with that he ran to his car and took off. And so, despite my best intentions (my one and only good intention since surgery!) I changed the tire myself. It was a slow, painful process and it took me an hour and a half to accomplish it. But I did it. Nothing would stop me now. And I drove off to start the rest of my life. Fortunately for me, I got smarter as I got older, otherwise I might not have survived the next thirty years.