It's been almost 11 years since my open heart surgery. I can still remember it like it was yesterday. What a terrifying time of my life.
I was 24 years old. I had been having heart palpitations since I was about 19 and didn't think much of it untill they become a real nuisance and started sending me into real episodes of 'weirdness'. I just didn't feel right. I knew that something was wrong, but doctors kept telling me it was because I was young, with three children and was stressed.
Finally, the Dr's ran some tests and noticed 'something' and sent me to a cardiologist. She told me I probably had nothing to worry about and gave me some rediculous things to do when I had an attack. OK, and she makes the big bucks WHY??
I eventually checked myself into the emergency room where they tried to tell me that my blood sugar was low. It was not. I finally convinced them to admit me and they scheduled an EchoCardiogram for the next morning. By that evening, I was told I had a hole in my heart.
OK, here I have to add a funny - My cardiologist now is an Italian man and at that time was in his late 30's. When he came in to give me my test results, I happened to be breast-feeding my son, Beau, who hadn't seen me all day. Dr. Olsen could not look at me and kept stammering and asking me if he should come back later. I said, "NO! Doc, come on! You see your patient's chests all the time!" To which he replied, "Yeah, but they're not usually so YOUNG!" ROFL I knew then and there that he was the Dr. for me!
So, I had a hole in my heart.... wonderful. Now we know what is going on. Let's schedule a heart catheterization to see just how big it is. Turns out that it is about the size of a pencil eraser and I will need to have open heart surgery.
WHAT??
At this point in my life, I had never had a surgery before. I had never had a broken bone, stitches... nothing. I was scared.
My Dr. tried to convince me to schedule it for the very next morning. That was out of the question. I had three kids at home. I needed to think about this. I needed time to prepare!
Did I mention that I was terrified? I was going through a rough spot in my relationship. He had been cheating on me and now I couldn't trust him. How could I trust him to be there for the kids if I was in the hospital with my ribs spread? I thought for sure that I was going to die on the operating table. I was convinced of this fact. So convinced that I spent a whole week with noone but my children. I told only a handful of people what was going on. I wrote my will. I made the kids' dad write a statement that he would let my mom have custody of the kids if I died and had it notorized. I was a total wreck.
I remember during this time, I just wanted to be with my kids. I honestly thought that it was going to be the last time I ever spent with them. I remember putting music on and holding my babies and dancing with them in my arms and trying not to let them see my tears. I don't think I slept at all that week.
Eventually it was time to face the music, not to mention the surgeon. My mom came to get me and took me and the kids' father to the hospital. I was to check in through the Intensive Care Unit. We walked in there and I saw all those people hooked up to machines to keep them alive and I almost lost it. I actually turned around and tried to walk through my mother to escape that place. But, she wouldn't let me by.
I get checked in, put on my gown and sign all sorts of papers that do not help my emotional state at all. They decide to give me a shot to calm me down so the anesthesiologists can come in to start my IVs. Well, the shot does not work. The anestesiologists cannot find a vein anywhere on my body but will not give up. One of them actually slams the door in my mother and pastor's faces and yells at me that it is my fault that my veins are not big enough because I smoked. I felt like a human pin-cusion and this went on for over an hour. Try after try after try. I was in tears, begging them to just stop. I didn't want the surgery anymore. Just let me go home!
After they deemed I had been tortured enough, my surgeon came in and decided that they would just put me to sleep first and then start a central line. Actually two. One in my neck and one in my groin. Let's go.. we're getting behind schedule here! (Don't mind me.. I actually loved my surgeon. He was amazing. He did the very first open heart surgery in our area. He died a year after my surgery in an automobile accident in New York)
Once they wheeled me into the operating room the last thing I remember was the nurses telling me to just relax and it would be all over when I woke up. Until I woke up and everyone was standing around me saying "Hey, she's awake! Give her some more!".
The first thing I remember after my surgery is my mind waking up. I had been paralyzed for the surgery, been intubated and was in the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. Now, I couldn't move. But, I could think and hear. I remember the blackness and wondering if I was dead. I remember my first thoughts being "Praise God, Praise God, Praise God" even before I realized what I was thinking.Then I heard my mom and felt that my eyes were itching like CRAZY! I heard the respirator and goof that I am, wondered if I held my breathe, would the respirator breathe for me anyway. So I tried it. Needless to say, the respirator won, lol.
I wasn't in any pain at the moment, but DAMN did my eyes itch! I kept trying to open them, squinch them.. anything. My mom noticed and started talking to me. Asking me what was wrong, telling me to open my eyes. LAUGHING at me for making strange faces, hehe.Then, all at once, with one final inhuman effort, my eyes popped open and there was Mom, about an inch away from my face! ROFL
Slowly, I regained some function of my arms and hands but I was strapped down and my mom got a piece of paper and a pen and I could write that my eyes itched. Oh the relief when she finally understood what I was trying to tell her and rubbed them for me!
Soon, the respirator came out, I was able to move and the pain set in. My family left and I was alone with the nurses who took wonderful care of me. Everyone kept coming in to look at me because I was the 'young one'. Definately NOT at my best, but, Hey, I guess they had seen worse.
The next day, the anesthesiologist had to come and apologize to me for the abuse he put me through. I was black from head to toe from all the needle pricks that I had gone through the day before. I just told him he would thank me enough to NEVER do that to another person again!
Five days later I was able to go home. It was a rough recovery for me. I don't know how elderly people ever make it through that. I was prepared for the pain, but the total and utter exhaustion and lack of strength just threw me for a loop.
I did a lot of praying during that time of my life. Probably more than ever before or since. I know that God saved me and that He was with me during that surgery. The fact that my unconcious self was praising Him as I came out of the anesthesia tells me that. And though I know He has been with me since my creation, this was one of the most profound experiences of His Hand on my life so far. There have been a few that have come close, but not like that one.
Though I never thought I would make it through that day, I did, and it has given me a different perspective on life. It has taught me most importantly to cherish every single second I have with my children. They are the ones who got me through it all. They are the reason I had the surgery in the first place. I was told I would most likely be dead by 33 if I didnt have it. And I would have been. During the surgery they found three more holes in my heart for a total of four. Three were the size of pencil erasers and one was the size of a quarter.
This post is brought to you by the Writers Workshop which can be found at Mama's Losin' It. It's never too late to join in on the fun! This week I used prompt number 2!
Till Next Time,
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