Discharged...

     Sunday morning and a beautiful Spring day. We did our usual exercise in Rock Creek Park--Joan running while I walked. The river was in spate after yesterday's rain, and the trees were turning that fresh, bright green of early Spring. The dogwoods and the red-buds were coming out, and the bird population was growing with the arrival of a few spring migrants.

     But the time has come to revert to the pacemaker saga. We left our anti-hero happy and relieved to see his partner, Joan, come through the door of his prison cell at about 7.00 am on Thursday morning. The first thing he asked her to do was to help him put on his underpants and the sweat pants he wore when he checked in the previous day. If he could have taken off the awful hospital robe, he would have done so, but the plethora of wires made it difficult, especially as the transmitter for the telemetry was in the pocket of the robe. But at least his rear end no longer peeped out from the back.
   We now revert to a first person narrative.
   The doctor arrived soon after and told us he had done all the paper work for me to be discharged. He said he had been required to sign 17 forms before I could be released. He warned me against raising my right arm in such a way that my elbow was above my shoulder--that could open the incision. Apparently, my veins were very deep, although the significance of that was lost on me. I said that I was disappointed that I had not remained conscious during the operation as he had promised: but he insisted I had been conscious, and that I had responded to things he had asked me to do. "You have simply forgotten it," was his explanation.
   I tried out my theory that perhaps my soaring blood pressure had occurred because solving one problem (my heart) might have exacerbated another (my blood pressure). He assured me the two were not connected...but then, he would say that, wouldn't he? "It is mostly because you are here," was his comment. And then he explained about showering, letting the strips on the wound drop off, and fixing a "wound check" appointment in two weeks. Apparently, I also need an  appointment with the St. Jude representative to "interrogate" the pacemaker in four weeks' time. Actually, the doctor deserves praise because he  was extremely solicitous about explaining things and answering questions.
   Once he was gone, Joan ordered breakfast for me, and soon after I had eaten it the nurse came to sort me out for leaving. Removing all the electrodes from around my body was not painful, but each one left behind a lump of sticky goo that resisted all attempts to clean it off with alcohol, and the nurse disappeared for ten minutes to try to "find the proper wipes." But these proved inefficient, and for days after I got home I was cutting off lumps of chest and other body hair were the goo had coagulated into messy lumps. Then came the most painful part of my hospital stay--removing the drip shunt or valve from my arm. The plastic tape that held it in place seemed have merged with my skin, and the only thing the nurse could do was yank it off--but not cleanly in one piece, but in a series of increasingly agonizing rips.
   Joan went off to get the car and I asked for a wheel chair to take me down to the main entrance because I was feeling a bit dizzy and groggy. Before Joan left, I said, "You know, I won't be able to use the safety belt if you are driving as it will go straight across the wound." But like a flash, she had the solution--"You'll sit in the back behind me." In that position the safety belt goes over the left shoulder. And that is the way we drove home. It must have seemed very odd to anyone who looked at us. Normally a passenger will sit in the front by the driver. And if the car has a chauffeur, the passenger will sit in the back, but typically on the near side. And that is how we have been driving around Washington the last few days--Joan driving, while I sit behind her in the back.
  Being home was wonderful, but there were some difficulties...