Heartier

My Mom and I met with Dr. Rosenbloom to hear how the surgery went at around 1:30. He told us to stay in this large waiting area until my Dad had been fully transferred to the ICU. About an hour later, my Mom and I became anxious. Were we even in the right place?

I walked up to the nurse’s station and asked them for some information. They pointed across the hall to where my Dad was and said he could be seen in a few minutes. I asked if it’d be OK to just peak around the corner. Though my Dad appeared somewhat corpse-like, it was a huge relief just to see him.

Within a few minutes, I was standing around my Dad’s bed with my Mom and Grandmother. My Dad was so doped up on pain killers that he couldn’t do much of anything. He also had this giant tube in his throat to assist his breathing. After standing by him for a bit, the three of us went down to grab lunch.

By the time we got back, the tube was gone and my Dad was semi-responsive. His entire body was swollen from the surgery and the pain medicine caused him to slur when talking. It created quite the scene. For the next two hours, I felt like I was at a comedy club with some drunk up on stage. At one point, he wanted some ice chips to relieve his dry mouth. After consulting with the nurses, we informed him that he couldn’t because the tube had just come out of his throat and they wanted to monitor it. “Well, if they had taken that tube out when they were supposed to, I’d have a damn cocktail by now.” My Dad claims he has awareness of being funny, but you sure couldn’t tell it from his expressionless face.

We returned on Thursday morning and my Dad was alert and talkative, sitting in a chair. His progress over the next few days was remarkable. The original expectation was for him to be in the ICU for two days and a regular hospital room for eight days before being released. Instead, we had full conversations and competitive games of Scrabble for four days before he was discharged from the hospital entirely. Walking my Dad into the pharmacy to drop off his new prescriptions today, ninety-six hours after open heart surgery, was surreal.

Fittingly, my Dad scored the 50 point bonus on his first word in his first post-operation game of Scrabble. The word was HEARTIER. The remarkable recovery is a testament to both the surgeons’ skill and my Dad’s healing abilities. He still has a few weeks before he’s back to full strength. But, the progress so far is beyond what anyone could have imagined.

Walking into the ICU on that first night, I passed by a family. Half of them were in tears; the others were consoling the first half. The anxiety leading up to my Dad’s operation seems like a lifetime ago. It’s weird to think how much different this week could have been.