Post-Surgery Firsts...

[jbailey]

I've had a series of post-surgery firsts in the past few days... Some of them good:

My first wriggling into a pair of jeans.

My first walks outside without my walker.

My first couple of stairs.

Some of them less good:

My first setback - It seems that 1.5km is too far for me to walk with the walker. I pulled a muscle in my back. I'm almost back to 100% after a couple of days, but I got to discover a new class of opiates.

My first family emergency - My father had a heart attack. He seems to be okay, he's in Kamloops hospital now, and will transfer to Vernon next week for the Angiogram. Information on bypass versus blood thinners waits on that (as does going home versus transfering to Vancouver). This is apparently the same sort of thing that killed my grandfather in his 30's. So there's two concerns:

1) My dad: Medtech is better than it was back then, and they're monitoring him in-hospital. So, I'm optimistic. While I can't find this in the Wikipedia article, I'm generally under the impression that once you make it to the hospital, you're probably fine and that deaths from heart attacks are from people who do things like sit around and wait to see if they'll feel better.

2) Me: Hopefully the exercising, non-smoking, vegan thing is enough to mitigate this. Aside from my recent taking of steroids and opiates for my back, I've generally treated my body well, and I'll find out if I should be doing further things or monitoring to stay away from this one.

And, well, there it is.

Comments

[jeboldt.livejournal.com]

Jeff - we're shocked to read of your dad's heart attack. WE will be thinking of him especially too, and you as you process this one. WE hope he will make a full recovery. And hope your muscle strain has healed too! Thinking of you, Janet and Ernie