Now that this sucker is basically all wrapped up, I wanted to take a moment to say I tried to be as accurate as possible, and remember as many details as I could.
I can’t be sure that every minor detail was correct. A lot of stuff happened over a period of time. And it happened a while ago. I used my memory, old calendars, and stories from others to try and get everything as accurate as I knew how. Hopefully, that’s pretty darn accurate.
I’ve seen two things recently that sort of opened my mind all over again to that old time in my life.
For one thing, I saw some old Facebook messages and remembered that even though I had in fact pushed people away, and I had been pretty quiet about the whole thing, I did begin to let more people in eventually. After the epicardial ablation (when I got the blood clot on my heart and was in the hospital for something like a week just hanging out) I was finally convinced to get a Facebook.
Stephen had been bothering me for months. I caved. I had forgotten that for some reason, once it got to that point, I let more people in than you would’ve imagined. As I’ve been trying to write everyone I’ve ever met to raise more money for my fundraising page, I’ve seen a few surprising old messages in which I let the cat out of the bag that I had a heart problem.
I’m not sure if I was lonely, or was finally ready to accept some of the attention that comes with being sick, or what. I never really understood the boundaries of whom to tell and not to tell. There were still certainly people I didn’t tell, but I definitely went through a weird testing the waters phase…
It’s weird when you’re sick – trying not to let it define you, deciding which friends to let in and how much help you want/need/are willing to accept. Thankfully, I have some patient friends. I’m very lucky.
I also got to peruse some old pages from my chart because a doctor needed my records.
First off, there are a couple of notes in there about how much I hate taking medicine. I know I’m loud and opinionated, but geez to goodness, was I that obnoxious about it? Do you think the doctors disliked me, or do you think they found it adorable that I think pills are so disgusting and annoying?
Let’s go ahead and go with adorable… (A girl’s gotta be able to sleep at night.)
I also forgot (ready for this TMI? (if not, skip down to next paragraph)) that I could not pee to save my life after my open heart surgery! No joke. Could not pee on my own for days. I completely forgot that, ’til I saw my chart. Then I remembered how frustrated I was, and how apologetic I was to the nurse. “Oh, I’m so sorry we have to do this straight catheter business.” Of course, she was a total pro and acted like it was no big deal at all. In case you wondering, I was able to pee like a big girl before I left the hospital. (And I still pee like a grown-up just fine.) (Yay!)
It was a really weird feeling to read about being put into “cardiac arrest” when they stopped my heart for my surgery. Crazy, right?
I’ve enjoyed talking to my chart a little. I saw an old blood pressure reading of 80/40 and said, “That a girl!”
There’s a note in here that says my “teeth are in good repair.” Well, they better be! Dr. Dorfman worked incredibly hard on them for months. It probably should say something more like “teeth are freaking excellent. Get name of her dentist later.”
It also says “extremely outgoing young woman.” Do you think that means they like me or do you think it’s an extremely passive aggressive way to say I’m a handful? I mean, I am a handful! Hopefully a likable one though, right?
I think I’ve pointed out anything even 1/4 worth pointing out from my chart.
I suppose the point of all this is to say, I tried to get the details as right as possible. I’m sure some friends saw it differently than some others, who saw it slightly differently than my dad, who saw it slightly different than my doctors – but I tried to give as complete and accurate a picture as I could. Hopefully I didn’t screw anything up too much. 🙂
One more post tomorrow wrapping this all up, baby!
I like how you are worried about whether or not the doctors and nurses like you, based upon chart comments. Of course they liked you! They were probably chatting about how you were their favorite patient and they were cheering you on and talking about you with their spouses and in the coffee shop. That Aurora girl…boy she has spirit…she’s gonna make it through all this JUST fine!
lol. Aw, Hope, Thank you. You are so fun!
We all got along pretty great as far as I could tell. I liked them. I know that much! 🙂