Funky stuff

The other night I entered the realm of celebrity dreaming. I hardly ever remember my dreams, and rarely do I actually dream about famous people. But a few nights ago, I was graced with the presence of James Brown. As cool as that might sound to some, it wasn't. He beat me up.

The dream started with me hanging out at a lake house (which looked suspiciously like the lake house my friends and I christened with copious amounts of alcohol our freshman year in college) with a former friend from high school. Don't worry friends from high school. If you know about this blog or have spoken to me within the last five years, I'm not talking about you. Anyway, so I was at this lake house when said former friend forced me into her car and drove erratically for what seemed like eternity. Finally, she dropped me off at a deserted train station. Only it was then that James Brown came up to me. And he started beating me up, all the while yelling his trademark "I feel good!" line.

According to my friend Wendy's dream book, dreaming about both attacks and celebrities means that you are feeling under appreciated and like you are not reaching your full potential.

Apparently, I'm having some issues. As if that wasn't clear from being beaten up by James Brown.

No, Clare, I'm not pregnant

And we have another new addition to our family. Really, Clare, I promise I'm not expecting a baby. Nope, my new bundle of joy is the brand new, bright orange 2007 Dodge Caliber sitting in our driveway. I'm in love.

The car is a "Yay, I didn't die!" congratulatory pat on the back and gift to myself. Hubby and I tried to be so environmentally conscious going down to a single car and puttering around town in George the Prius. But it was just too hard. Cleveland is not convenient for the carless. It got to the point that I was scheduling my gazillion doctor appointments around his work schedule. It was also up to him to do all the errands and the grocery shopping since I couldn't very well walk home from the store carrying the 17-lb. bag of dog food we get each time.

So we got the Caliber this past weekend. It is so cute. I feel so sporty zipping around town with the sunroof and the satellite radio. It's even got a "chill zone" for beverages in the glove compartment. Though, I don't think that is intended for anything less wholesome than pop or water.

So now all that's left is a name. Any suggestions? Hubby suggested Santiago or Chiquita, but the latter makes me think of the color yellow. Hmmm, what to name my new pride and joy?

Congratulations to me for pulling through!

Pat, pat, pat.

Long overdue, Part two

As you must have realized by now, this has been a loooooooooong ordeal. Little did I know that going into the hospital for elective, preventative surgery would leave me fighting for my life and enduring emergency procedures.

I came home just two days before Thanksgiving. It was amazing to drive through the streets of our neighborhood on our way home from the hospital. I felt like I was seeing everything for the first time ... Houses had changed, landscaping had changed, we even had new neighbors. And I can't even describe how it felt to enter our house for the first time. While I was in the hospital, I felt myself forgetting what our home looked like. I made Hubby take pictures of it for me so that I could look at it whenever I wanted. But actually sitting on our own couch in our own living room surrounded by our canine kids, Josie and Sierra just felt awesome. I cried. Of course.

I spent the next few weeks building up my strength. Relatives and friends took turns staying with us so that I wasn't alone. I first walked with a cane, couldn't get up from sitting (whether it was the couch, bed or toilet), couldn't make it up the stairs and was scared to be alone. My sister stayed with me the first few days, then it was my aunt's turn.

My aunt had only been there one day when we got a call. My grandmother, who was living in Illinois, died. My Mimi, who I always bragged was the perfect grandmother, passed away in her sleep. I couldn't believe this was happening. After all I had been through, and after all my family had been through, how could we handle letting her go right then? Now I was not only crying for me, I was crying for her.

I thank God, though, that I was out of the hospital. I truly believe she kept her strength through my ordeal. Once she knew I was okay, she just let go. I remember calling her for the first time after my trach was removed. I surprised her by calling from my hospital room. She was so happy to hear my voice after so long, that she broke into tears. I remember telling her that she shouldn't cry, that everything was okay, and that I loved her. We talked a few more times that remaining week. We even talked the day she died. She said that hearing my voice on the phone that first time was the happiest day of her life. I'm so grateful I could give her that.

But I couldn't go to the funeral. I didn't feel comfortable making the long trip and was on a short leash by my doctors. They told me it was my decision and I wanted to be there, but I just knew that Mimi would want me to recover and that I wasn't strong enough yet. But I wrote a memorial, a tribute, to the grandmother I love, and my sister read it at the service.

The rest of my recovery at home has been pretty uneventful. I slowly became stronger, no longer needing physical therapists to work with me at home, and I stopped having to take IV antibiotics right before Christmas. Hubby had been administering those every morning to prevent infection from building up on the artificial part of my aorta.

The only lingering question is whether or not I will need to have a defibrillator implanted. My heart became so weakened in the heart attack, that it isn't performing at a normal level. A few of my doctors are pretty confident, though, that it will return to normal, so we are holding off on that decision until the end of March.

On January 2, I finally went back to work. I went back part time for two weeks, but it was amazing just to feel like things were getting back to normal.

Now, I'm working full time. And I'm taking the train home from work, though Hubby still drives me in the morning. In fact, things I returned so much to the way they were before all of this, that it almost feels like a dream. While in the hospital, I couldn't imagine my life ever being normal. Now I can't imagine spending all that time in a hospital bed.

I've returned several times to try to thank as many people as I can. There are so many doctors and nurses that I credit with saving my life on many occasions. I know I will never be able to track down every single one of them, but I'm doing my best to make sure they know how they impacted with me, and how my heart will carry that love and appreciation for the rest of my (hopefully now a long and full) life.

Long overdue, Part one

I can't tell you how many times I've started writing this blog entry only to stop and erase everything. How can I tell you what has happened to me since September? How is it possible to detail every twist and turn of my hospital stay, every euphoric up followed by every spiral down? Do I even want to tell you?

Yes. I do. It's therapy for me. I went through a period of time when it was hard for me to talk about it. I cried endlessly every day. I still cry, but the tears eventually turn to marvel that I'm still here.

You see, I almost died.

Where to begin? I guess I should just dive right in.

I went for aortic replacement surgery on Sept. 19 at the Cleveland Clinic. It was a day earlier than I was prepared for, but I felt okay with it. Nineteen is a good number. It's the day that Hubby and I each celebrate our birthdays, and February 19 was the day of our first date.

I cannot tell you how nervous I was. It was so hard to fall asleep the night before, Hubby and I both holding each other, pretending not to be scared of what the next day held. I was to be at the hospital at 5:30 a.m. because I was scheduled to be in the first round of that day's surgeries. My dad and his wife met us there. I could only take two people back into the prepping area, so my dad and Hubby went. It was so weird to be surrounded by all these other people and their loved ones preparing for surgery. The nurses asked me the requisite questions, and then it was off to the O.R. As I was wheeled away, Jason broke down in tears. I tried to be brave. I tried to reassure him, but I had never been so scared in my life.

The next thing I remember is waking up, still intubated, in the ICU. I remember using my fingers to spell out words on my dad's palm. I spelled out "PAIN." He thought I told him I loved him. I meant to say that, too.

But I was in a lot of pain, and they couldn't find a drug cocktail to alleviate it. Morphine had no effect at all.

I was transferred to a regular room the next day. I had a private room, which meant I didn't have to deal with a roommate. (All my rooms were private once I left the various ICUs). Hubby slept in an armchair for the first two nights.

After the second night, I remember two cardiologists coming in to talk to me. They had taken an echocardiogram and saw something that looked funny. I don't even remember what they said. All I remember is everything in my vision suddenly turning red. I remember saying this aloud, and then I closed my eyes ... I guess sort of passing out.

The doctors and nurses rushed me to the cardiac catheterization lab. They threaded a catheter through my arteries to determine what was wrong. They found it. My corroded arteries weren't reattached to my aortic graft correctly. It was a complication of the surgery. And it meant I needed emergency surgery. Now.

They let Hubby come in and talk to me for a few seconds. He asked if I understood what was going on. I said I did. He told me I would be alright. I told him I knew that. He said he loved me. I told him how much I loved him. And then I was off to the O.R. again.

The emergency surgery was a triple bypass. The blood wasn't flowing through my arteries correctly, so they needed to create new pathways. They harvested arteries from my right leg. I have five incision scars to prove it. They also inserted a balloon pump into my left leg. My heart was too weak to beat on its own. The balloon pump did the work for it. It kept me alive.

They couldn't even close my chest after the second surgery. I spent the next five days in the ICU with my chest open and rib cage spread. Thank God I don't remember that.

I almost died that first night after the second surgery. I was so weakened from what essentially was a heart attack. I had countless blood transfusions. And they assigned a nurse to sit by my bedside all night. I was his single patient. He held my hand and tried to comfort me as best he could. I was supposed to be unconscious, but I wasn't.

I was doped up enough that I only remember snippets, and I don't remember my chest being open. But I was coherent enough that my eyes were open, and I communicated by writing things and facial expressions. The nurses were shocked. They said they couldn't safely give me anymore sedative, but they couldn't believe I was awake.

Eventually, my chest was closed and the balloon pump was removed. I spent the next six weeks in the ICU. I was transferred to step-down units several times, only to return to the ICU within hours. I developed pneumonia. They tapped my lungs but the fluid kept coming back. I wore high-pressure oxygen masks, but my breathing got more and more labored. I fought as hard as I could, but I just wasn't getting better and my heart function was declining. Finally, they reintubated me. I hadn't wanted that, but the ICU nurses and doctors said it was the only way to improve my situation.

The next thing I knew, I woke up with a tracheotomy ... a hole in my neck ... and I was on the ventilator with a feeding tube running up my nose into my stomach. (Did you know they put Ensure milkshakes down the feeding tubes? I guess I was expecting something more scientific ...) But my situation still didn't improve. I was still retaining fluid and had gained about 20 pounds. I didn't realize until I got home and saw the stretch marks left on my skin how much I had gained weight.

Finally, they transferred me to the heart failure unit. I didn't know at the time, but it was then that my cardiologist placed a call to Hubby. He told Hubby to be prepared to put me on the heart transplant list. He said I was too young to die from this.

But luckily, I responded to the heart failure drugs. I shed the extra fluid and began to breathe easier. I even started walking again with my physical therapist. And they started weaning me off the ventilator.

But then I developed a staph infection. They found it on one of my blood cultures. I had to start heavy-duty IV antibiotics to fight the infection.

After a few weeks in the heart failure unit, I was transferred to a unit that specializes in weaning people from the ventilator. I had already started that process. I was doing well. I was the only patient most of the nurses had ever seen who actually ate solid food while still having a tracheotomy. And I walked farther and farther up and down the halls.

I began to lose hope that I would ever come home, though. Hubby was at the hospital every spare minute. He'd spend his days off there. And he would come before work to say good morning and after work to wish me sweet dreams. He knew how to adjust machinery, help me in and out of bed and settle me into bed for the night. He was my best nurse. But I couldn't help the gut-wrenching feeling every time I saw him. I couldn't stand that I was putting him through that. I hated how tired he looked, how hopeless it all felt. I burst into tears each time he came into the room. I begged him to take me home. He said he never saw me smile anymore.

On my final weekend in the hospital (I didn't know it was the final weekend at the time), my best friends came to see me. Nikki, Clare and Diana. They are my emotional support, my comic relief and my family. They came armed with CDs, cookies and hair care products. They washed my hair for the first time in two months. They watched Sex in the City episodes with me on Clare's laptop. They painted my toenails. And they made me smile. Something I hadn't done in a long time. And they got to hear me speak for the first time in over a month.

Like I said, I didn't know then that I was headed home within a few short days. But I now credit them with helping to make that happen. They lifted my spirits. They put the fight back into me. I was energized and ready to make it. I had clean hair, but more than that, I had the love of my best friends. And they were cheering for me. I can't tell you how much it meant to me, that they drove or flew in from different states to sit in my hospital room. I had been devastated when I missed Nikki's wedding and was unable to toast her and Jon. I still am. It's a memory that I will never have. But the memory of those three women, sitting at my bedside, sharing stories of our friendships is one I will cherish forever.

After the girls left, the holidays were approaching, but I didn't dare to dream I would spend them at my own home. But then a new doctor came into my room. He promised to get me home the next week. And he did. In a flurry of activity, my trach was removed, I was set up with a permanent IV, given a walking cane and sent out the door. Hubby brought me comfortable clothes to wear home, and even brought my wedding ring. I hadn't been able to wear it while in the hospital. He gave it back to me by getting down on one knee to present it.

And so I went home. I went home with an army ready to help me out. My sister came just as I was leaving the hospital. She wheeled me out while wearing her National Guard fatigues. My aunt had booked her flight to come in, and Hubby's mom was planning her road trip. I also had home nurses and physical therapists scheduled, along with a slew of follow-up doctor's appointments, which were not likely to end anytime soon.

Next time .... I'll update you from my first time leaving the hospital until now.