Dave, our prayers are with you for a speedy recovery!! God Bless You and Laree
Dave Draper and Post Surgery Follow-up
Reprinted with kind permission from Laree and Dave Draper (thanks guys!)
From Dave Draper’s Post Column
Never too early to say hi.
(Column continues below)
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My plump and uncertain fingers descend upon the keyboard, the first time in 15 days, as many days since my hands have grasped the weights causing them to clang and struggle for release. I don’t miss the weights; they are objects of interest for healthier and stronger men than I. But I do miss you, the objects of my affection.
To set your mind at ease from the very beginning, the surgical procedures went well and I’m recovering. Each day is better than the last. Some days I wish I were dead, others I think I’m going to die. Some days I laugh, some days I cry. I’m home now, the hospital to my back. Laree’s tapping away in her nest, Mugsy’s curled up on the couch and I’m adjusting a light that appears to be the end of a lone and echoing tunnel.
I’ll make this note short, leaving the details to another day, a more lucid mind and hands more nimble than hooks on a hoist. I’m tired, bombers.
I’ll not yet dramatize the bleakness of open-heart surgery, the smiles going in and the freakiness coming out (the experience is yet to be completed) and instead ponder with you some of the highlights that dance across my mind. For example, did you know hospitals are open and running all night long? They are busy in every corridor with doors slamming, beds traveling in different directions like barges on a delta; commands are delivered with a harsh compassion and every article — dolly, bottle, tube, dressing, needle, pill, message — is sterilized, scrutinized and passed on from one pair of eager and skilled hands to the next. Nurses rule where no creatures go. The sounds come in waves like sounds in a big city with the rhythmic cycle of bedside checkups, regular applications of medications, whispered reactions to every detail, hushed responses to every query and sign-language evaluations for each urgency.
Where have all the cowboys gone? They’ve become nurses.
Nurses speak every tongue under the sun: men and women, short and tall, colors to match a rainbow, personalities of every description and indefatigable. How they do what they do without exploding absolutely mystifies me. They leave in the morning and return again at night and start the whole thing over again. They have names like Mary, Jane, Yen, Raffy, Barbara, Evelyn, Chu and Anna. They’re heroes!
I arrived at Good Sam’s Pre-surgical Admitting at 5:15 AM for my quadruple bypass and valve procedures. It’s as dark as Hell at 5:15, and the fires were blazing. I drove the 45 minutes from Aptos in our trusty SUV, while Laree sipped coffee from a Starbucks cup and played hip hop tunes on her iPod. She’s a trooper, that one!
It wasn’t long before I was registered and in my gown parked outside the sparkling operating room marked, Surgical B. Laree was given her walking orders and decided to hunker down in the cheerless waiting room — three novels and a knitting project… hopeful. Nurses, doctors and attendants roamed the halls of the inner sanctum, occasionally stopping by to say hello and offer a comforting touch or word.
“I’m fascinated by the activity and equipment and preparations,” I told the anesthesiologist as she reviewed my charts. I said nothing of the fact that I wanted to go home now and I had just wet my pants. I thought of the IOL gang and knew you were with me, wanted me to be strong and fly high. The team rolled me in as I knew they would. “Hi, everybody,” was my greeting, accompanied by a contrite smile. Truth is I was confident in the doctors, the best, hopeful in the Lord, the Almighty, and 60 seconds from disappearing into the oblivion of some powerful drug… 99, 98, 97, 9-.
I returned to planet earth in 13 million pieces 10 hours later. All the nice people were gone and I was alone with a pack of vicious hellions. The pain was not like any pain I’ve known. It hurt my soul, confused my mind and threatened my existence. They didn’t believe me. I couldn’t breathe. They didn’t care. I knew what to do and how to fix it, but they didn’t listen. They looked past me; I prompted, I provoked, I hissed.
There was a tube down my throat, a ventilator, to regulate my breathing. In regulating my breathing, it also prevented my speaking. This turned out to be my greatest horror — instant verbal communication gone. All other pain was mere discomfort, a joy in comparison. I desperately sought understanding and was at every turn told, NO, loud and clear. I was never so deeply affected by anything.
I worked my way through the haze and maze slowly, ever so slowly, till the nasty gadget was removed. From that moment life loomed before me like a flock of wild geese straining across the cold, early morning winter sky, ugly bats outta Hell.
Tonight, post-op day-13, Laree and I will dig into our digs and watch the evening bump around. I’m getting better, they say. War stories can get old fast, especially telling them as they unfold. We’ve been busy with little things that have become momentarily, temporarily big: sitting, standing, lying; don’t cough, never sneeze. I’m swollen everywhere (19-inch calves — hellooo), have shortness of breath (most miserable), get the chills and spinouts and walk as I am able.
All of which brings me to the end of the narrow runway. Oh! One last thing: I’ll be better than ever before ya know it.
Flaps up! Fly high… OMS (One Might Say): Be strong and courageous…The Bomber
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