Medical Update

Today is the 90-Day Anniversary of my hospitalization.

Physically, I’m doing okay, although all the doctors seem to be amazed that I’m still vertical. That kind of scares me a bit. I feel in almost perfect health except for two slightly disturbing items: I still get an ouchy feeling when I inhale deeply, and I still get out of breath fairly easily. In fairness to the medical establishment, I was warned about both. The ouchiness is due to the scar tissue inside my body, the healing process, and I will continue to feel them over the next several months. I wonder if the damp weather affects it, too. And the shortness of breath is just an ongoing symptom I’ve had for over three years now. The hospital gave me a cylinder I breathe into which measures my lung capacity; so far it hasn’t diminished, and my doctors think that’s good. I’m also instructed to begin walking for the purpose of expanding my aerobic endurance, and to track my progress.

Mentally, I’m in a better place, obviously. For one thing, I’m not in a hospital. Those places’ll kill ya. More importantly, I was let go from the grinder I worked at, thank God! I have money for a little while. Probably not enough until the economy turns around, though. So that’s a source of stress. As is the discrepancy in the futures I envision for myself and others envision for me. Still, though, that stress is far and away more tolerable than that insane asylum I slaved for. More thoughts on that – as anonymously as possible, for the sake of all parties, of course – once the severance runs out.

Spiritually, still struggling. Oh the sinfulness of man! How we drown in the quicksand of our fallen natures. I had such a spiritual renewal – who wouldn’t? – with all those IVs and catheters in me. Three very deep conversations with the priests from my parish. The daily Eucharistic ministers, breezing into my room like wandering minstrels, giving me physical and ethereal sustenance. And the promises I made! … And yet, still I struggle to be faithful, to live up to a small measure of what I babbled under the waves of morphine, waiting to be opened up and, possibly, cured. Perhaps I am too hard on myself. A priest in the confessional once told me I was. Which is why I make efforts to go easier on myself, knowing that the Father would want the same. Still, though …

The third week in May I meet with my cardiologist, but I anticipate little here. However, the past two times my blood pressure’s been taken the results were a little high, 140 over 90, so that’s something to discuss with him (“Let me write you a prescription for some b. p. medication” – “Noooooooo!”). The end of May I go in for a CT scan, and this is where all the cards’ll be turned over. My electrocardiologist really, really wants to see what that pulmonary vein is doing – as do we all, I suppose. Is it closing, or staying open? So much is riding on that short, simple question.

That’s where we stand at Day 90. I am enjoying life a bit more, I think, taking it a bit more easy. Even the sound of the Littlest One crying is now music to my ears …