― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Have you ever watched a butterfly come out of the shell of its chrysalis? I mean, really watched it and really saw every single little detail of what happens? It's not pretty.
First,
there is some oozing and “bleeding” and goopy stuff comes our, as
the chrysalis cracks open. Then, the butterfly pokes a little bit at
a time from it, first one antenna, then, another one. Then, a foot,
then, another one. Then, the tip of a wing, and then another one,
till it frees itself up from the straight jacket it's been in, which
all of a sudden is no longer big enough for it.
But
even when it's free, it's sort of in a shock. It just sits there, a
little wobbly, kinda trying to figure out for itself what the heck
happened and how it will be supposed to move and function in the new
body it just got. It will look dizzy for a bit, a little shaken up,
still with goop all over it, maybe still a bit in pain from the
birth, but it will try to move about and try to find
its new feet.
Like
I said, wobbly at first, shaky, but pushing through it. It won't be
for a little while till you see that Monarch spreading wings and
taking off on its own. And it is what's it supposed to happen.
Although
the drastic transformation is mostly internal, this is kind of what
coming out of heart surgery feels like. You go in as you,
no doubt (just as the larva thinks it goes in as itself). And they
take you away in this … room you only heart about afterwards,
because you won't remember… They, then, completely transform you
and then, when you finally come to, you start noticing how much your
body has changed. And you have no idea what's inside, either!
It's
not pretty, at first. When I came to, it was probably 2 AM on
February 12, in the ICU, and all I felt was thirsty. I never crushed
ice in my teeth before, but then, it's all I wanted to do. I noticed
a scar on my lip, scabbed over – I figured from the breathing tube
I had in me during surgery. Then, I noticed my right arm had a brick
taped to it with catheters going into my wrist. Then, I noticed I
could not feel my left arm and leg. I said all these things to the
nurses who were hovering over me around the clock.
I
asked a lot of questions (the butterfly would, too, had it had a
voice, I am sure of it!). I had no idea what happened after I had
fallen asleep in the anesthesia room the day before – I asked if I
had a stroke (no), if they did circulatory arrest on me (look it up,
it's fun – they freeze you up so your brain won't eat up oxygen)
(yes), I asked how long was I in arrest (38 minutes), if they fixed
my heart (yes, 'I had a looong surgery' they said), if my husband was
there (no), or the surgeon (no) – it was 2 AM and they had a long
day, so they went home. I didn't ask what they did to me, but the
nurses volunteered that information: my surgery was very complex, and
very long (12 hours); they replaced my aortic valve, my ascending
aorta, and they did a quadruple bypass surgery. I remember being
scared: “Oh, my God, I have so
many new and moved around parts in me! How will this
all work?!”.
Then,
the next day, I started feeling more and noticing more: three
catheters in my neck, four tubes in my chest, another catheter in my
bladder, bandages around my left leg, bandage on my chest and lots of
scabs and lots and lots of bruises: my whole left leg was blue, my
groin was blue, my stomach, too. I was an experiment. Will I ever
come out of this? Will I ever heal? Will I ever come out of this
bed?! All I wanted was ice – this is as far as I was thinking.
But
I did come out. After 2 days in ICU I took my first walk and ate my
first half of a banana and 4 grapes. After 7 more days of pain and
grumbling and more tests, and even a random heart attack, just for
safe measure, all in the regular hospital room, I got to come home,
one chest tube still in me. I got to be driven home in our own car,
and sleep in my own bed that night. Well, “sleep” is a metaphor
for “laying there all night staring at the ceiling and whining in
pain”.
After
coming home, the process of breaking loose into my new “me”
started. I was the same person, but my body had to learn a whole lot
of new tricks to be able to get around. After two more weeks, the
chest tube came out. After a month from surgery, I took my first
nature walk and started shooting (camera, not gun) again. After 6
weeks, I drove for 10 minutes again. I thought it would feel freeing,
but it didn't. It felt painful once more. After 7 weeks, this week,
my cardiac rehab will be done. I built up endurance to walk up to 45
minutes at 2.8 mi/hour. I started (with the drainage tube in me) with
8 minutes at 1.8 mi/hour and I was sure I was going to heart attack
again on the treadmill. But I didn't. I did all these in my new body,
with new limitations I had no idea that were possible, with new pain,
and new sensitivities everywhere. But I am not stopping. You
can't stop once you're up straight.
I
have two out of countless scabs still hanging onto me. The bruises
are all gone.
How
do I feel looking back?! I feel speechlessly lucky and breathlessly
humble! After all that I just told you they did to me while I was
asleep, I am alive, you all! I am breathing! I eat and lay down, and
walk and hug my cat and my husband and I have my brain all here with
me. Now that the strong drugs are long gone (gone with the tube), I
am, in my head, the same person I ever was before. Hard to believe
they drained my body from all the blood, moved it to a machine and
put it back in me, changed the course of my blood stream, froze me,
for crying out loud, and then put me all back together again to make
me look to you all as me again.
How
does that not just wanna make you cry?! I just want to hug my surgeon
till I die and thank him forever for this. I don't know how many
years I was given with this, but I am grateful for today. I am
grateful that I kept my brain and that my previously clogged up
vessels can now function and pump life giving blood to all my body. I
am grateful that I get to see the sun every morning, still. I am in
awe!
Just
as yoga taught me a billion years ago, the hardest part, really, of
all this was quieting down my monkey mind. I am born to be a control
freak. So, my nature is to always put my mind in control of anything
that happens to me. But with this, you completely have to relinquish
everything (your body, your functions, your freedom, your health,
your brain … everything you are) to strangers, and
let yourself go down that slippery slide. You must trust them (and
boy, what a lesson this is in trust!) that they know
what they're doing, and trust God that He'll bring you back. After
that monkey climbs down from your shoulder, and walks away, you can,
too walk into the hospital and volunteer yourself for this life
giving surgery. This body stuff, these pains and limitations, these
are easy to manage – I am back in control now, you see. But the
hardest part was that letting go, closing the eyes and letting the
doctors transform my heart to prepare me for my rich, beautiful life
to come.
Right
now, I feel like the butterfly who came out of that shell, but it's
still trying to figure out how it all works now. I am still wobbly. I
still need help doing most of everything around me, but I can do more
every day and definitely more than chew ice, like that first night in
the ICU.
One
step in front of the other. Just like the chrysalis doesn't kill the
butterfly, it just makes it better, prettier, different, the surgery
didn't kill me, much, much to my surprise. It didn't make me
prettier on the outside (sorry, all), but I hear it did make my heart
prettier. All I know is that it's beating and my surgeon thinks “my
heart has completely no murmur (music to the ears of a heart patient
who has been used to the murmur for 15+ years now) and my lungs are
gorgeous”. I'll take that as inside beauty for sure.
One
day, slowly, I'll grow into my wings. One day, I will fly again. For
now, I am figuring out my limbs, two of which are still numb. Still,
I am in awe of this miracle that the human body is and of its power
to regenerate, transform and keep going. There is no way there is not
something magical, something we cannot explain for ourselves,
something beyond out ability to comprehend in this world to make us
come back from something like this! No way!
Good
to be back!
Before - the morning of the surgery as I was taken into the anesthesia room.
After - a month from surgery, walking on a nature path.
