I just started coughing one day and had shortness of breath. I'm beat up but was always in good shape and don't drink or smoke - never did. I was coughing so hard I was seeing stars. Dry cough. Two doctors visits and was being treated for a throat infection, which I didn't have. Still coughing a lot I went back for a third visit in two months. They gave me an ekg and after looking at the results my doctor herself took me to the ER. She though I was having a heart attack. After 3 hrs they realized it was an aneurysm. Plenty of testing after that and I knew I had to go under the knife.
Not happy with the facilities in Buffalo, I called Cleveland Clinic and made an appointment. A few back and forth visits and a date was chosen, some 6 months later. Huge risk that it could burst in the meantime but there is a long line and you have to wait your turn. Not gonna lie, it was a brutal procedure but CC made it doable. I've since had a pleural effusion, gall bladder removed, and a stroke in my left eye. And I take plenty of meds. I'm strong again but ready if I suffer another system failure. So the photography is a welcome distraction.
The valve procedure was secondary to the aneurysm issue. Basically, they lower your body temperature on a table, slice your chest vertically, grind through your sternum so they can open up your chest cavity, clamp off your heart after linking the arteries in your neck to a giant machine to keep your brain alive, then they squeeze the life out of your heart, completely stopping it, and then the cutting and suturing begins. When you wake up you wish you were dead. It is as rough as it gets, not gonna lie.
I got lucky somehow. Every single girl, and I mean this truthfully, that took care of me in ICU was a knockout. My wife wondered who did the hiring. I had to learn how to walk again and couldn't speak for days. I was in bed for over a week and a half. They were constantly doing things to me and not many of them were enjoyable. I was given all kinds of injections and meds and connected to machines in a dozen or so different ways. The fentanyl was next level - I saw Jesus twice, in my room, staring at me. Nobody else did so I figured I must be special because I haven't gone to church since 1973.
Anyway, if anybody here needs help with something like this you go right ahead and contact me. I'll do anything I can to help.
Now that Jesus has my back, we should probably get back to the bewbies. He still hasn't said anything to me so he must be good with a healthy appreciation of the female anatomy.
That's an incredible story. Best of luck to you, but I'm curious why you had to learn to walk again and why you couldn't speak for so long.