Once I was Home

Once I was home, I was truly an invalid for a couple of weeks.

I spent a lot of time just dozing in my La-Z-Boy chair. Everything was hard, from putting on my clothes to finding the appetite to eat, usually just soup in the first week.

Twice a week a home care nurse visited to check on my wounds and change the dressings.

The wounds and the scars they leave are distinctive.

There is a straight incision of about eight inches long down the centre of the chest, a couple of stab wounds where the tubes were inserted to drain the fluids and old blood from the chest cavity, and in my case three long gashes where the veins for the grafts were taken from my left leg.

The cuts on my leg were held closed with staples. No kidding. They looked just like something used in carpentry or craft class at school.

My first outing came ten days after surgery when I had to visit my family doctor to have those staples removed. They had given me a special tool for the purpose when I was discharged from the hospital to take with me when I visited the doctor. The removal of the staples was not pleasant. It hurt a little bit more than having stitches removed which wasn't so bad but there were just so many of them.

Just being out and about after surgery was disorienting. I had to keep the little red pillow handy to support my chest when I walked or coughed. I think it was the amount of drugs I was taking that was the biggest problem. It made me feel unbalanced like I was on a boat.

It takes six weeks for the breast bone to heal completely so for those weeks you have to be very careful. Ten pounds is the upward limit of what you should lift and activity should be concentrated on walking and mild exercise.

I tried to take short walks twice a day. The first few attempts were pretty pitiful but slowly I was able to get more distance .

At the end of the third week home I was able to walk enough to start attending the "Heart Show" education program, a three session prerequisite for the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program I was enrolled in.

So here is the chronology of events:

• Bypass Surgery on December 22nd
• Home on December 27th
• Staples out January 6th
• 1st pre-rehab class January 23rd
• Begin 12 week of Cardiac Rehabilitation program February 10th