Steve's Posts

Started cardiac rehab this week, three times a week for an hour each, I am now one month out from my Aug 10 aortic valve replacement, Doing 13 minutes on a treadmill at 2.5 mph and then 10 minutes on a stationary bike, (I'm not counting the couple minutes of warm up and cool down),plus "weight lifting" with a 1 lb weight in each hand, and some stretches. I have to laugh considering that I was doing Cross Fit a year ago with a bunch of superfit 30 year olds (I am 67--I'd scale it down to "geezer cross fit": still, I was doing 50 situps and box jumps and burpees etc...intense 30 minute Crossfit routines. I stopped 6 months ago or so, because my body was just saying something wasn't right.( But I am so glad now to be able to start from ground zero and lay a firm foundation, and do it in a room where I have a heart monitor and nurses watching over me and keeping track of my progress! I have noticed that when I do about 20 mintutes of walking, at a fairly mild perceived level of exertion, it is the next morning that I feel it--a feeling of being deeply "drained" deep in my chest, and of needing a "rest day". But my energy gradually builds during the day so I get more functional. ! asked my surgeon why this fatigue happens and he just said "Well, you were out for five hours, and we beat up on you pretty bad in there!" That made me laugh!

I'm now in my 18th day of new life with my new aortic valve. I'm doing well! I've cut down on my hydrocodone/Tylenol pills from 8 a day to about 3 or 4 a day (using ibuprofen instead), and walking up to 4000 feet at a stretch; helping cook meals with my wife and doing dishes; and getting some writing done too. I sleep quite a bit. I love the fact that my normal blood pressure is now normal, around 120/70 (I used to have a huge gap between systolic and diastrolic) as is my pulse of about 65 resting (it used to be about 40--and no, I am NOT a runner!) But in this post I wanted to paste in something that happened on my third day of recovery. I wrote it up on the fifth day, and am just copy-pasting it here (with a few corrections). It was a pretty amazing interesting event that made be feel like Jason Bourne. Here's the description: I am finishing my fifth day of recovery after an aortic valve replacement. It went really well, but on the third night I had a remarkable incident. I woke up out of sleep, in a bed and room I did not know, with a young man standing near me fussing with something. I look around, felt he looked familiar somehow, but had no idea where I was. (Imagine waking up in a hotel room in Vietmam tomorrow morning) I asked him who he was, and he said’ You know me, I’m Matt; I’m replacing the IV on your hand.”) I said, “I don’t remember you and I don't know where I am.” He said “What do you mean?” I said “Well, if you asked me how to get from my home to “here”, I ‘d have no idea where to go. I have no idea where I am, how I got here, and what I am doing here.” I looked at him, and around the room, and I could have been whisked to another planet for all I knew. The amazing thing is how clear and lucid I was. It was just that my current experienced world was completely detached from my larger memories. Matt quietly asked me questions, starting with my name, my wife's name, etc. I knew all that. I just didn't know where I was or why I was there. He then fished for any little things I could remember, doing this for about 20 minutes. One first things I said to him was: “Okay, I do remember my daughter was flying in from New York to help my wife, and my sister is flying in to help her too.” ANd then: ’Hmmm, they were to help during some kind of surgery, but I don[t know what or what for.” Then slolwly I would remember little patches of conversations with people in the hospital--but just little vague fragments tha tdid not form a whole. Like "I remember this nurse doing something ..." And then I started thinking out loud about why I couldn't remember where I was. I said “Okay, so maybe I had a stroke which affected my memory.” The nurse guy--Matt--said “Why do you think that?” And I said “Well, I know stroke can zap memory, and I remember reading, this surgery--hmmm-- does have about a 1.5% of causing stroke.” (Matt then had me do a few tests and said: “Good try, but you haven’t had a stroke, Steve.” I was just like I was Jason Bourne or something, so far as my recent past went. But after about 15 or 20 fragments fell into place, the whole fabric of memory reknitted itself to my larger memory… I then again knew just where I was at 100 Michigan Avenue Grand Rapids, and how and why I got here. But it took wonderful patience and gentleness on Matt’s part, in a quiet private room, to recover this. It is interesting that I didn't go into any panic or anything (maybe hydrocodone helped!; instead it was like our our little science-fiction adventure or something. I'm glad my wife wasn't here...it might not have all been so calm and re-assuring if someone got panic-stricken. Each new round of nurses I’d tell about it, in case it happened again and they needed to “bring me back” back again. Perhaps it can be of some value for others to know about htis. It seems like memory-cells that seem to float off to the side can get re-knit to the mainland by low-key back-and-forth dialogue! A doctor-friend of mine suggested yesterday that it may have been caused by a very mild case of "postoperative intracerebral vasospasm." I don't know about that--I did a little research on postoperative cerebral spasm but didn't find anything described similar to what I experienced. But if you get like I was and don't remember anything about where you are, try to remember: don't panic!

Yesterday afternoon I was discharged from Meijer Heart Center and came home. My sister Nancy is here helping my wife Anne--they are off shopping at farmer's market right now. My atrial fib episode of Saturday midnight-plus subsided with the help of beta-blockers by Sunday mid-day and has held good ever since, with my new "normal" heartrate of around 65, rather than around 43 as for earlier decades. Plus a new-for-me normal blood-pressure of 120/70 or so. My heart is gingerly working its new aorttic valve and saying "Hey, dude, what have we got here?!" I walked about 1000 feet yesterday to see the neighbors, sat a chatted, then walked back--up a non-trivial hill. This morning you better believe I felt it--like totally depleted, and it was a bigger relief than ever before to get to the end of my 6-hour norcal span and be able to take two more of those babies! i shoulda restrained myself I know, but its part of my learning curve I guess. I feeling great now, but plan to baby myself totally for a while, doing planned exercises and walking each day and NO MORE even if I feel it will be easy and isn't hurting. (The non-easy/hurting comes a day later, I now see!) THere was very interesting segment today on the Dianne Rheems Show about the role music is being found to play in recovery from surgery. Best Steve