It was another early morning in the hospital, and a team of doctors and nurses were taking care of many patients on the surgical ward. The usual group of doctors came into the room, with a large pull cart of binders and medical supplies. They would read out loud for each patient their “situation” for the day, such as: if we would need more tests or if we could be ready to return home.
As I was still waiting for that final “okay” to go home, I was hopeful that the blood test INR reading would be at the point where I could go… but I heard that my reading was just a bit under the correct amount, at 2.4 level (which it should be between 2.5 – 3.5 INR)… the INR reading is a blood test that tells you how thin your blood is, and it needs to be within this range to be safe in a patient with a mechanical heart valve, otherwise the blood could clot easier and cause problems with the proper function of the valve.
However, my reading was at 2.4 but one of the doctors of the team stated: Mr. Hamelin you can go home today!… wow I thought… really?… that’s good news! For the past 12 days I was connected to an IV unit for Heparin (blood thinner)… and the dosage had to be done very slowly and gradually, as I had perhaps had too much Heparin in my system that may have caused the internal bleeding around my heart, which caused another collapse on my first return home.
At this point, my blood was still low in iron, as I was still looking rather pale and should have had some iron supplement, but it was not part of my discharge. However, later when I arrived home my wife called the head nurse at the hospital and she mentioned that I should have had some kind of iron supplement prescribed. Luckily for me, there was some iron supplements at home that I could use, and the nurse indicated how much I should take per day etc.
Well, finally I was able to return home, so I made arrangements with family to come to pick me up and it was near lunch time. My wife and father came to get me, and since it was still too difficult to walk too far, all heart surgery patients need to be escorted on a wheelchair by an orderly. The wait was long to get released, as the first part of the release is the paperwork, and all the prescribed medications that a nurse would stop by to explain things and then request for an orderly to take me down to the main lobby for my eventual return home.
I was still feeling somewhat nervous and anxious, and the long wait for an available orderly didn’t help the situation. When I was finally able to go, I was feeling somewhat eager to get going, and it really felt strange that I needed to be in a wheelchair to get to the front door… but then there was another wait in the main lobby. The orderly left me with my wife in the lobby, and then I just went to sit down in the lobby area to wait for my father to come near the front door.
The front lobby was busy with people coming to and fro, and was all a buzz of people traffic… I had almost forgotten how busy a hospital can get… especially since I was in somewhat isolation for over thirty-seven days… it was a strange feeling indeed!
Finally my Dad had arrived at the front door, as it was just total traffic congestion in the front parking area. I had managed to walk to the car, got in and sat in the back seat. As we travelled home, I could feel every little bump and movement of the car on our merciless roads in Montreal, and the bumpiness was somewhat of a shock to my heart and chest area, so I just held on tight, and positioned myself as best as possible to help lessen the impact of those crappy roads!
Our first stop on the way home was at the pharmacy, where I could get the prescription medication. My wife went to get the prescriptions filled while I stayed in the car with my Dad. We talked a bit about a few things, and it wasn’t too long to be on our way home.
When I finally arrived home, it was cold outside but I managed to get in the house, walk rather slowly up a few stairs, then sat down in the living room couch… I was finally home!
My recovery process was still to continue… but this time I was home for good I thought.
Thanks for reading… TM 
