Now I just had heart surgery a month ago and as you might imagine it comes with the usual kinds of challenges associated with any major surgical procedure. There’s pain and swelling and risk of infection, lack of mobility and stamina, etc. Besides these major problems, there are a whole bunch of minor ones that, although they are minor compared to a failing heart, can really make post-surgery life miserable.
I’ve already moaned about losing my driving privileges—I became something between a grounded teenager and an old man whose family took his keys away because he was a danger to society. I’ve also whined about being less mobile, losing my appetite, and sleeping odd hours. Now that I am almost a month out of surgery, I’ve discovered a few more minor unpleasantries. They have continued to make my recovery something less than the month-long holiday I was expecting.
The Matzah Effect
I love my pain meds…I really do. They make the pain go away and they do it really well. They made the first few days after surgery possible and the first couple of weeks at home bearable. Without them, I would have been immobilized in bed, really hating life. But those meds do have a well-known side effect. It makes for a fun riddle: What do hydrocodone and matzah have in common? They both cause discomfort of a specific and debilitating type.
It is such a well-known problem that they give you meds in the hospital to counteract this effect…for me it really didn’t help. So seriously did my health care providers take this problem that they would not let me leave the hospital to go home until I had…you, know…downloaded. The problem was that they didn’t give me the big guns to take care of the problem until just hours before I was supposed to go home. My friend Keith came to pick me up and we literally hung around in my hospital room waiting for IT to happen. It never did, but they sent me home anyway. And of course those big guns kicked in on the way back to Columbia, causing a fevered stop at Hardees…but not for the biscuits and sweet tea.
Here at home, I’ve tried to manage this problem with various “gentle” remedies…and they are disgusting. I started with prune juice. The combination of high viscosity and earthiness really hit me the wrong way. I’ve found if I ice it down well and slam it like a shooter I am good. Just the prune juice wasn’t enough, though, so I started taking Citrucel—it’s a combination of Tang (what the astronauts drink…are there still astronauts?) and snot. Honestly, I kind of like it…even the gritty, sludgy bottom part that you almost have to chew.
Still, at first this one-two punch wasn’t getting the ball rolling, so to speak, and I went for the more intrusive remedy—Milk of Magnesia. It says to take it before bed, which I did. Then in smaller print it said it can work anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours after taking. Now, why would I take it right before bed if chances are I am going to be awakened by a magnesium-inspired emergency a half to six hours into my night’s sleep? Hell, you should take the stuff at breakfast and stay close to home. The thing I discovered with Milk of Magnesia is that it tastes horrible…I mean it tastes really horrible. It tastes like what you are trying to do. To its credit, it works though. Thanks to prune juice, Citrucel, and Milk of Magnesia…mission accomplished!
Sleeping Upside Down
Since getting out of surgery there has been only one way for me to sleep—on my back with my head propped up. Now, I don’t really like to sleep on my back. My preferred position is what I call the crime scene position. You’ve seen the chalk outlines of crime victims on TV shows—face down, legs splayed, one knee bent, one arm at the side and the other elbow bent. That is how I like to sleep—like I was just dropped from a 30 foot high tree into my bed. And I haven’t been able to sleep that way for a long time. I know, big deal…at least my heart works. Given the bigger picture I realize this sounds a little petty, but you have to consider where I am at. I am a victim of my dad’s plate theory (different from plate tectonics). As you age, your plate may stay the same size, but what’s on it gets smaller…and you focus more on that little bit there on the plate. Right now, things are a little slow for me, so I have time to worry about little things like whether I can sleep the way I want to.
The other night I woke up in the middle of the night and realized I was sleeping on my stomach. I was immediately freaked out. I’ve avoided sleeping on my stomach because I was afraid I’d re-crack my sternum and spill my giblets all over the bed. I take the other night as a good sign. It means I am getting better…because I didn’t re-crack my sternum and spill my giblets. Of course that wouldn’t really happen because my sternum is wired together so even if I did re-crack it my giblets wouldn’t spill out. Giblets aside, I am glad to be getting my sleeping back in order because other things are still out of whack.
Culinary Purgatory
One of those things still out of whack is my eating. Keep in mind that I like food and I like to eat…call it a hobby.
Since surgery, my appetite has been reduced considerably. I really don’t mind that too much. Eating a lot is always fun, of course, but enjoying food is the really important thing. Since surgery, everything I eat tastes salty. Salty food tastes too salty and sweet food tastes horrible because it tastes salty. The only thing that doesn’t taste really bad is food that needs salt. My morning coffee tastes salty—I love my morning coffee, I love the taste of good coffee…not any more. I love sesame chicken from a local Chinese restaurant—ruined. I got hooked on chocolate pudding while I was in the hospital with the heart infection—now it tastes like it was made with sea water. This has even ruined butter for me…butter…one of the four food groups, a staple of life…it tastes too salty. I made brownies and they tasted too salty; my birthday cake tasted like the Atlantic Ocean. It’s like some punishment found in medieval descriptions of hell or in an ancient Greek myth—I want to eat but everything tastes so bad that I can’t stand to eat it.
I asked my surgeon about this and he said he’d never in 21 years heard of such a thing. He suggested it might be medication, the trauma of surgery, or the after-effects of the anesthesia. The nurse I saw yesterday, who has had heart surgery, said it is a common complaint. She said it goes away in a month or two. I consulted the great source of all worthy knowledge—the internet—and only found information about this on a heart valve surgery discussion board. All the posts said the same thing—it made eating horrible. I was glad to see that they all also said this would go away eventually. Most said in a month, some said 6 weeks to two months.
I am approaching week four since surgery and still everything tastes like salt. It is killing me. OK, maybe it is saving me because it is forcing me to reduce my intake of salty and fatty foods. Still I don’t like it. When this wears off I am eating sesame chicken, carrot cake with cream cheese icing, a pint of Ben and Jerry’s, and a steak. Just writing about this is making me hungry, so I am going to stop and have some salty carrot-cake flavored yogurt. Yum.
Manscaping Itch
There’s one other problem that has cropped up and it is the result of my pre-surgery manscaping. Before my surgery, two nurses shaved me from chin to ankles. They didn’t have much fun doing it, and neither did I. I am sure the effort was important for my surgery, but it produced some strange looking results. I don’t really like the way my legs and chest look without hair. Honestly, I am looking forward to it growing back. I feel kind of feeble and could really use that hair back to man me up. But I am amazed at how slowly the hair is growing back…it is taking forever. Ladies, you know the problem with the grow back of hair like this…it itches like a son of a biscuit. Right now, my chest itches like crazy but I can’t just go nuts and scratch like a mad man. I have this 10-inch incision running right through the really itchy area. Again, another form of torture devised by the demons of hell or the Greek Gods—I itch but can’t scratch.
OK, so my whine is now over. These things are a nuisance, but they are getting better…most of them. And I know they all will eventually resolve themselves. I’ve got a lot to look forward to and I’ve got a lot of work to do. My friend Chet is sending me a trainer that I can put my road bike on. My doctor said once I get it I can get on and start riding. It will be nice to ride again, even if it is only in my living room. Who knows, maybe it will make food taste good again.
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