I'm Almost A Real Person Again

I've been home for about half a week and I have been making some real improvements in that short time. I think it's safe to say I'm feeling better than I was at the same point in my last recovery. I'm definitely not perfect yet, but I'm getting there. I still need to take narcotics to get through the day feeling like a normal person, I can't stand up straight without feeling like a few things inside me are tearing, and I'm not allowed to lift more than 10 pounds or drive a car, but I'm still very happy because I can...

Poop every day without taking a laxative
That's right! I can have a bowel movement all by myself these days and I've been having one every day for the last five days! Being constipated was making me feel terrible and thankfully I don't have to deal with that anymore. I think it's finally over because I'm eating regular sized meals on a daily basis and I'm taking a smaller amount of painkillers than I was in the hospital. The nurses kept blaming the narcotics for my poopy problems and it has gotten better since I started taking less. I never knew pooping could make me happier than it did before, but this is easily the best thing that has happened to me since getting home.

Walk almost two miles without stopping
In the hospital I couldn't actually measure how far I was walking, I had to use time and the number of laps around my floor to determine my improvement. Now, with the help of google maps I know exactly how far I'm going and yesterday I set a new personal record when I went for a two mile walk without any breaks or stops. The whole walk was on flat ground, but I have lots of time to add in the hundreds of hills around my house to my walks. The last time I had surgery it took me almost two weeks to build up to the distance I hit yesterday. I feel so good this time around that I'm sure I'll be running half marathons by this time next week. I don't mean to sound over confident, but I think that's a natural progression.

Take the dog for a walk all by myself
Nothing makes you feel less like a man than a 15 pound perma-puppy being stronger than you, and that was the case when I first got home, but not anymore. One of the more painful parts of recovery from open-heart surgery is the muscle soreness in your chest and back over the first few weeks following the operation. Last Thursday my ribcage was cut and held open for about six straight hours. This puts a lot of weird pressure on all the parts of your torso and it takes weeks for all the little pains that it causes to go away. It also makes it really painful to do things that involve any of the muscles found in your chest and back. Pushing and pulling are almost impossible for the first few days. Today, though, I did an important test and found out that I can now handle the heavy strain and immense loads a very tiny dog can exert on a leash. Slowly but surely I'm getting my manliness back one small victory over puppies at a time.

The Big Day

I received a very important phone call today from the office of my surgeon. They have juggled a few patients, worked some scheduling magic and set a date for my valve replacement. The big day is Thursday, August 18th. I need to head down to Ann Arbor and the University of Michigan hospital a few days earlier for pre-op checkups and other routine things, but the 18th is the important day. The stuff that happens before is actually pretty boring. It involves walking all over the hospital for three or four tests and sitting in a bunch of waiting rooms. Then I'm not allowed to eat or drink anything for 12 hours and I sleep like shit.

To be honest, I was hoping the date would be set a little sooner, but I'm happy that I know the day and can really start making definite plans. I'm not sure I have enough material to blog about for another two weeks before the surgery so I may try to spread the material out a bit and not post every single day. Or, maybe I'll just ramble on a lot and let everyone who is reading sort through the mess.

When In Doubt Make a List pt. 2

Here are the top 5 reasons why surgery isn't the worst thing in the world right now. This time in reverse order from least important to most.

5: 101 Facebook friends
I was stuck at 99 friends on Facebook for the longest time. I'm relatively new to the social networking world. I opened my account in January of this year, and I've been accumulating friends slowly but steadily over the last eight months. At least it was steady until I got to the number 99. I was stuck there for over a month I think. I must have stopped meeting people or being interesting enough to induce a friend request once I got a step away from 100. It's never been my goal to build up a giant list of Facebook friends and brag about it or feel like I'm really popular, but the number 100 seemed important for some reason. I'm not sure why, maybe because I think it legitimizes me as a Facebooker. At 100 I'd no longer be a newbie or an amatuer. I'd be a legitimate social networker who knew some people. I'd have connections, and those are supposed to be important when you grow up and become an adult. 99 connections was child's play, but 100 means I'm growing up and really becoming a somebody. Well, since I came home about a week and a half ago I received my 100th and 101st friend requests from people I went to high school with. I can't say I actually feel anymore grown up or any better at facebook than I did last week, but I'm still proud of myself for being at least acquaintances with 101 different people. Things are definitely looking up this week.


4: I get to fix the problem right now
For my first two surgeries I had to play the waiting game. I waited 14 years to have the aortic stenosis I was born with fixed and there was a year between the time my doctors found my aneurysm and the time I had it repaired, but this time there is no waiting. I have been blessed with a problem that requires immediate action. The prolapsed valve that I have now will most certainly lead to heart failure if nothing is done, but I'm not suffering from heart failure now (another little bonus) and to prevent it I need surgery right away. That means no living with physical restrictions while I put my life on hold. This time I'm just putting my life on hold for the surgery and recovery. I get to focus all my energy on productive things like not dying and then getting better.


3: I was home when doctors found the problem
I have nothing bad to say about Korean doctors or healthcare. The few times I had to see a doctor in the past 18 months were pleasant experiences, but I like my cardiologists here in Michigan. I've been very lucky to have one of the best cardiothoracic surgeons in the world perform all of my surgeries. He will also be performing my valve replacement that's coming up and I couldn't be happier about that. I trust him, I believe what he tells me and perhaps most importantly he makes me feel comfortable with everything that has to be done. He is straightforward and honest and doesn't sugar coat things. He speaks to patients the way they deserve to be spoken to. Although, I must admit, I hope I never need to see him again. He's a great person to have holding the knife when things are bad, but I'm not a huge fan of bad. I'd prefer to be in good health. The less I need to see my surgeon the better.

2: I'm still covered by my mother's insurance

The state of Michigan has been facing tough times for quite a while now. The economy is down, unemployment is up and people employed by the state have had to accept pay freezes, pay cuts and fewer benefits in some cases. That been said, public teachers are still very lucky to have the healthcare plan they have. It costs them more than it used to, but without it who knows where I'd be. My family never could have afforded any of my operations without insurance and thanks to the recent changes to healthcare I am covered by my mother's policy until I turn 27. My birthday is in less than 9 months. If I had completed my teaching contract and traveled through southeast Asia like I had planned and had put off coming home and getting a check-up I would no longer be covered by my mother's insurance and I would have to spend the rest of my life trying to pay off the bills I'm about to accrue for this surgery. Children are expensive, but I think I qualify for a different level of expensive. When all is said and done, I think my three open-heart surgeries will have cost about half a million dollars. That's a shitload of money!

1: My friends and family

I'm about to write some things that are relatively sappy and mushy. If you have a weak constitution for such material and would like to stop reading before causing yourself nausea or any other malady please know that I am grateful for all the support I have been given and stop reading now. If you have the courage to proceed please take note that you have been warned.

I am blessed by the amount of well-wishes, positive thoughts and words of encouragement I have received in the past and over the last week and a half. Thank you to everyone who has offered to help or had a kind word to say. I appreciate it all more than I can express. This problem was a big surprise and difficult to get my head around at first, but it gets a little easier every day as I have time to process it and plan for the future. It's also made easier by every word in every message I've received. So, thank you again. I appreciate everything.

What the F$#* Just Happened?!

This is supposed to be a vacation. I was going to see my family, visit some friends, go camping and fish for the first time in years. I've actually done most of those things, but this vacation sucks. I was excited, I was happy, I was only planning on staying for nine days. Now, I'm not sure how I feel about anything, I'm going to be here for at least four or five months and I need surgery. What the f$#* just happened?

I have been living in South Korea for the past year and a half teaching English to kindergarten students. South Korea was/is wonderful. I fell in love with the country, culture, people and, more importantly, my new job. It turns out that I really love teaching. The first year passed too quickly. So, I resigned my contract and began a second year. Things were going so well; I had found new passions in rock climbing and teaching, I was thinking about staying for a third year, tentatively planning some extensive traveling through southeast Asia and enjoying all the time I spent with my new friends. I was very happy.

I came home this July to see my family for the first time in 18 months and to get a checkup with my doctor. I felt, and still feel, great. I'm in the best shape I've ever been in thanks to all the climbing I've done, but it didn't matter the checkup did not go well. I am on track for heart failure. That is a bad thing. My aortic valve is leaking, severely, because the valve is no longer able to close. Instead, it folds back into my heart and lets the blood that was jumped pumped out flow backwards back into my heart. It's called prolapse. This is now the way it's supposed to work. As a result of the prolapse, my heart is working too hard and has grown about a centimeter in the past year and a half from the extra exertion. The increase in size is what will lead to heart failure, as long as the problem persists my heart will continue to grow. The only solution is to replace the malfunctioning aortic valve.

For the third time in my life I am preparing for open-heart surgery and all the hard work, uncertainty and pain that comes along with it. I'm not excited about this, but I'm ready for it. I want to get this over with and get back to making plans and living my life. This is most certainly going to suck a lot. It's going to hurt and it's really f$#*ing up all my plans, but it's going to get better. Since I was born I've been facing problems like this and it's always gotten better.

I was born with a condition called Aortic Stenosis. Basically, my aortic valve was too small and a bit misshapen. As a result, my heart had to work harder to pump enough blood to my body and brain through the smaller opening. This overworking would have ultimately lead to heart failure from an oversized heart. As I was growing up I had a lot of restrictions put in place on the amount of physical activity I could do. That was a bummer, I had to quit little league because running the bases was too much exertion, but I was terrible at baseball and I found other things to do like math club, reading a lot, wearing tapered Wrangler Jeans and having a bowl cut for way too long. I had the problem fixed when I was 14 years old, in July of 1999, and I was in good health for the next 10 years. That was my first open-heart surgery.

In the fall of 2008 I decided I wanted to join the Peace Corps and started the long application process. Because of my medical history I needed to pass a few tests and get cleared by a cardiologist before the program would accept me. It seemed totally reasonable and I felt great, physically, so I made the appointments as soon as I could. During the first test I got some bad news. My aortic artery was dilated to over 5.5 centimeters; that's about 2 cm too big. I had an aneurysm. In the simplest terms possible, an aneurysm is a blood vessel that starts to expand and look like a bubble or balloon. As the bubble gets bigger, the wall of the blood vessel gets thinner and the chances of it breaking, or rupturing, become greater. The only way to fix such a problem is through surgery.

Because of the size and location of my aneurysm the doctor decided it was best if my activity level was reduced to "occasionally walking at a brisk pace for short periods." That meant I couldn't do anything but walk at a reasonable pace; no more running, no more hiking, no more swimming. Awesome! The reason for the restrictions was the fact that if my aneurysm were to rupture I would be dead before I even knew what happened. That's how quickly I would bleed to death. So, maybe the restrictions weren't so bad after all. I ended up using the free time to learn how to make beer, and now I have another fun hobby.

From the time I learned about the aneurysm it took about one year before the surgeon would operate because the risk of having the aneurysm needed to outweigh the risk of surgery. On August 27, 2009 I had my second open-heart surgery. Afterwards, I changed gears and got focused on teaching English in South Korea instead of the Peace Corps. It ended up being one of the best decisions of my life.

I don't have to wait a long time for this latest surgery. My surgeon is actually juggling his schedule and rearranging previous appointments to fit me in as early as possible. I get to solve this problem right away. I am very thankful for that. And, who knows, maybe my current setback will help me make the next "best decision" of my life. It doesn't hurt to hope.