Hearts in Hawai'i
Heart Attack + 1 Day
5/12/2011
Wednesday night rather bled into Thursday morning, so I'll start with having breakfast served to me just before 8 a.m. I hadn't eaten in 17 hours, and this will always make hospital food taste good. Afterward, it was a morning of waiting; waiting to be released to the post-cardiac unit (or whatever the hell it was called). I was still hooked up to two machines, so there was no walking around allowed, just standing. Saw the Chaplain and then my cardio doctor. His statement that my heart function was "significantly diminished" stunned me a bit until I realized he was talking about current function rather than capacity or potential function. It was the first time I fully realized that this whole thing was going to be a process. Surviving the heart attack and having the blockages cleared up was just the start.
In the early afternoon, they took out the IVs in both arms, hooked me up to a portable monitor which would keep track of my vitals and wheeled me down to my new quarters on the sixth floor. I had a roommate but he was out of the room for the day, so it was nice to get a little quiet and some rest. A few visitors came by later in the afternoon, and it felt good to get on my feet and walk around the floor for awhile. A dietitian came by for a visit while Patty was here and we talked at length about what my diet had been. She said a positive about my diet was the fact I was eating three meals a day and not every choice I was making was bad. But, the amount of sodium and saturated fat I had in my diet had to be drastically reduced. At this point, with the pain i had gone through the previous night still quite fresh in my mind, I was agreeable to pretty much anything!
What I hoped would be a good night's sleep was interrupted--loudly--by staff bringing my roommate back. He had been in OR where they had cut him open and installed a pacemaker. He'd already been at SMDC for eight days which made me realize that my situation wasn't that bad. Nice guy, and we spoke at length about various topics. Staff was in and out of our room all night until around 3 a.m. when I finally fell asleep for about three hours. Still, I was badly lacking in sleep and feeling somewhat jet lagged (like when we fly back from Hawaii over a sleepless night on a cattle car 757 jet).
Previous: 5/11/2011--A Sudden Unpleasant Surprise
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