Another Monday morning arrived, and the usual daily routine would begin… let’s see what could possibly happen in our little world of our four walls?… wake-up time is 6:00am, with the early morning orderly, nurse visit and our blood technician of the day (a.k.a “the happy vampire)… afterwards it was a long wait to eat something, as breakfast was always served after 9:00am.
I had some small “stash” of fruit, yogurt, or crackers to help hold off the hunger somewhat, and when the meal finally came it was usually good enough to “fill the void”… I know it sounds a bit like being a prisoner, but in a way that is how you feel when you’re hooked up to machines and such… minimal movement is the way it is!
So, the morning time was also some movement of patients who are either coming in from surgery, or are heading out for another test or whatever. A new patient was rolled into our room, he had large bandages on his legs, and also hooked up to an I.V. unit.
The man had just had surgery the day before, and it was a “by-pass” surgery… as the bandaged legs were a “give away”, as an artery is removed from the leg to use as a “by-pass” artery on the heart. Although it looks more severe on a patient to have this kind of heart surgery, the more difficult one is a heart valve surgery… as valve replacement surgery usually takes longer to recover from in comparison to a by-pass surgery.
Our new “neighbor” was a rather heavy man, yet he was also quite jovial in his demeanor, we introduced ourselves and his name is “Claude”… he was quite happy to be alive for sure and seemed rather pleased at the result of having open heart surgery again… apparently it wasn’t his first time! Claude had his first heart surgery a few years ago, but it seemed that his diet didn’t change well enough, so he had to have another surgery to fix his clogged arteries.
I must say that I felt rather uncomfortable with the fact that this man was so “jovial” about having open heart surgery, as this is to some degree a burden on our health system I thought, and our effort to good health should be something we all strive for, and not take for granted that our health system will “bail” us out every time we become too careless or complacent.
My other neighbor patient, Charlie was a bit “out of it” with his ongoing problem of coughing pain and discomfort, his lungs were in real bad shape! Nurses were taking special precaution to have him monitored carefully, as they had to try to get him “healthy enough” for his upcoming operation.
The remainder of my day was spent reading, contemplating life, or watching some TV… and trying to grab some little sleep, if possible.
We all had curtains that could be pulled around our bed area, so that would give us some sense of privacy… but really didn’t stop any noise level in the room.
Later that evening I was told that tomorrow (Tuesday) I would have my 50 staples removed… just something to look forward to!
Until the next day in room S8-42… thanks for reading! 🙂
TM Journal 