Thirty years ago today I had my total correction surgery on my heart. It was only supposed to be about a seven hour surgery but due to major bleeding issues it took about seventeen and a half hours. Reversing some work that was done on a previous surgery led to some major bleeding. Afterwards I had to be taken back to surgery twice and eventually the bleeding stopped and then I began my recovery. In the middle of all the trouble my respirator I was on stopped working. My surgeon hand bagged me while they got it working again.
The surgery was a Thursday morning. At the time I was a very dedicated fan of the Dukes of Hazzard. I watched it every Friday night it was on. After the trouble I was heavily sedated and watched carfully. That Friday was a new episode and so despite the heavy sedation I woke up in time for the show to start. My mother noticed and asked the nurse to put on the TV for me. The nurse kept telling my mother that I was sedated and would not be awake to watch TV. After several tries my mother told the nurse to tell me that. The nurse saw me with my eyes wide open staring at the TV and turned the TV on. After the show was over I nodded to my mother turned away and went right back to sleep. Just recently I was able to relay that story to one of the actors on the show, Rick Hurst. He said it was the best fan story he had heard.
What was supposed to only be about a two week stay turned into 28 days and about 2 or so months out of school. My recovery was slow. While in the hospital I was able to do some building out of LEGO bricks I had at the time. I also was playing with a Rubik's Cube. One of my nurses allowed me and a girl I met there to do treatment on her. We really bandaged her arm up. I spent Halloween in the hospital and they had a party for the patients down in the cafateria. They gave us costumes to wear. I was a huge fan of Star Wars
at the time and I choose to be C-3PO.
A lot of the activities that I participated in at the hospital, walking, the party, etc. were done reluctantly by me. I was hurting and due to an emergency return to surgery the fast reconnection to bypass nicked a nerve in my leg and my foot and leg was very tingly and painful and I did not want to put any weight on it. Eventually I began to heal and they liked my numbers and I went home. I felt like I was there forever. Going home almost felt like I was going to another world. I was getting so used to my hospital room.
The surgery was a success and years later I had to have two revisions of that surgery to replace parts that we knew would need replacing. Of all the surgeries I remember this one has the odd distiction of feeling like it was so long ago and yet feels like it was very recent. A lot of the details are gone but I remember more about that hospital stay then most of my other ones.
