The pain of healing
There are different kinds of pain, just as there are different kinds of injuries, and there are different kinds of healing.Accross the board, healing is painful to differing degrees. I also believe that pain is a very individual thing. It bothers me when you know what you feel, and physicians dismiss you. I received only one snide remark from my cardiologist, and it hurt my feelings enough that he did not believe what I said, I more or less quit going to see him. I have missed a lot of appointments. The keep scheduling them, and I keep missing them, but my visiting nurse plans on making me go next week. I guess I probably should since I have been having problems.
Anyway, to pick up where I left off yesterday.... once I got home, things changed. No longer on the morphine, the pain became more of an issue. I was on some really good pain medication, but it still hurt more than I ever though possible. I gained a new appreciation for my mother who went through a quadruple bypass, yet never once complained. I guess I am a wuss. Mom was among the strongest women I know. It really is a toss up between her, and her older sister Jean. Jean was something else. One day maybe I should write about her.
Many things that I had taken for granted before surgery I found to be difficult. Eating was difficult because many of the foods I liked for some reason did not taste good anymore. But additionally, I found myself more prone to choke on what I ate. Little things like sitting and laying down were difficult, and in fact I was unable to lay down to sleep. I tried many times, but would hurt and panic, and would head out to the one chair in the house I could sit in with the least pain. But sleeping still evaded me since I was unable to use my CPAP at the pressure I was accustomed to. After some days of complaining to my doctors, the pressure was reduced by 3 cm, and that helped considerably. But I spent many nights pacing and praying. I was prone to panic attacks following surgery, and took a lot of valium to keep me calm. Many times I would walk until I fell down... I do not really know how many days I was unable to sleep, but I know my poor wife was at wits end. I really thought I would never get better.
I was unable to cough, or take deep breaths, and found it difficult and painful to get in and out of cars. Even the weight of the fabric my shirts were made of resting on my incision was uncomfortable. One of the things I was not fully prepared for was the emotional aspect of healing. Apparantly it is common for people following heart surgery to have extreme emotional swings. So many days I would find myself in tears for no apparant reason. My family and friends were so supportive, I cannot begin to tell them how much I appreciate them.
(more to be added to this later)
BREAK BBL
