Will's Posts

Entry By Will/Don What a difference a day can make. Per the provider's direction, I have increased the diuretic and there are signs the water is now flowing out of my body faster than being stored. I still feel and look bloated, but I can simply tell by vision some of the stored liquid is gone. Walking is also less difficult now. I can bend my knees. I even went for a few walks inside the house over night. Moving around seems to make a big difference. Even though a walk can leave me breathing heavier, I can just tell my body is adapting again to activity I also find I can become tired from the walk, which helps with sleep. I have to admit I ended up "cheating" and took a sleeping pill around 2:00 AM last night. Based on how tired I was and quickly I was out when I climbed into bed much earlier in the evening, I thought for certain I could have made it through the night. However, I did make a couple bathroom breaks (becoming more frequent now that the prescription diuretic is starting to work]. And although I can tell me legs are draining some excess liquids, they are uncomfortable. The Ambient put me back to sleep, but I guess I snored with decibels rivaling airplanes (a bit of an exaggeration, but gives you an idea of how loud. It's great to have our dog, Trek, back home full time with us again. We can tell he's a bit confused, however. I'm certainly not the same person I was. His routine has been thrown off. One of my jobs is to get up early and walk him. That's not happening right now. It's hard enough to walk a few laps around the inside of the house, climb in and out of bed, or make a trip to the bathroom. There's no way I could give him the kind of walk he needs. Mark has taken over that responsibility. Mark also rearranged the living room, so I can watch TV or Netflix. I'm not ready to tackle going up or down the stairs to the basement, where our family, laundry and exercise rooms are. So Trek is a bit thrown off. His favorite spots in the living room are either harder to get to or temporarily do not exist. I have also noticed he has been exceptionally gentle around me, almost as if he knows that I cannot handle his more rambunctious energy.

Entry by Will/Don It's amazing how the passage of time seems to be measured by different grains of sand. The New Year seems like it was only yesterday. Yet it feels like ages have passed since we headed down to Rochester to fix my heart. We made it back in less than 1 week. I am so glad we went with the less invasive surgery and that we went to the Mayo. The doctors at the Mayo are much pleased by the operations success thus far. That damn heart murmur, the crier regarding my diseased heart valve, has been there since as far back as I can remember. It is no more. It's gone and my heart is functioning as well as expected for this much time after the surgery. Of course, my heart, like much of the rest of my body needs more healing time. Even though the doctors performed a minimally invasive surgery, the fact is, I had major heart surgery and my heart was traumatized as with all heart surgeries. The right side of my chest, the area where the robot "arms" entered my body, looks like it got in a fight with an ice pick. I don't think I've ever been so black in blue before in my life. The good news is that I was released from St. Mary's yesterday and given the green light to go back to Minneapolis today. Let's hope for a safe and healthy recovery. I'm passed the operation and seem to have put the nausea behind me, but I do still have pain and walk at a snail's pace. It hurts when I cough, which I do quit often. Thank goodness I have only sneezed twice and was able to minimize its impact. My lungs have not yet fully re-inflated. Additionally, I am retaining water big time. I look like the giant marshmallow man from Ghostbusters. My body has to re-learn to excrete additional fluids and not store them in the body. I am wearing gray sweat pants and if you only saw those legs, you would swear an elephant was in the room. This is making walking difficult. My legs are not very flexible and I am carrying 30 or more pounds of excess water in body. I find myself winded much easier today than yesterday morning. Speaking of walks, I have been meeting my daily goals. So far today I have four of my 6 walks done. It's a lot of work for me, but I'm making myself do the things I need to do. I also practice throughout the day with the breathing tool they gave me. I have to suck air into my lungs 10 times consecutively each waking hour. The tool measures the amount of air or pressure taken into the lungs. Not sure when I'll be up to seeing company yet. Everything seems to zap my energy. I'm hoping for a good night's sleep tonight. It could be my first good one since the operation. Thanks again for all your entries in the guestbook. And of course A gigantic thanks to Mark. He's been such a hero throughout this process. From providing emotional support to all the physical work he's now doing to care for me

This is Will writing. First, thanks to everyone for your entries in this journal. Mark and I truly appreciate it. After a rough couple of days post-op, I've progressed positively by leaps and bounds. The first couple of days I had really bad nausea. Doctors think it could have been the combination of the anethstesia, the pain killers (narcotics), and an empty stomach, but I bounced back quickly and was released today, the original target date. I'm looking forward to Mark and me heading back to Minneapolis tomorrow and picking up our dog, Trek. It was great having Mark here with me for the duration and a special thanks to Rochelle for her generosity of time and for her comedic relief directly preceding the time of the surgery. It really helped reduced the anxiety. At the moment, everything seems to be proceeding as expected. Hoping recovery goes just as well. A huge thanks to Drs. Burkhart and Suri for a successful surgery and for fixing my broken heart. I can't say enough about the nursing staff: their caring, concern, and support were wonderful.