June 7: In Stow at Judy’s for my rehab.

June 6: Made the big move to a bed last night, switching from this couch sleeping crap that I’ve been doing for nearly three wks. Ok, so it wasn’t dramatic in improving my sleep quality. But it did help my low back a bit by just giving me a firmer sleeping surface. From a sleep quality standpoint, man, I’m still sleeping on my back which is totally foreign to me. I did notice that I had a couple occasions where I snagged a couple hours sleep in-between long bouts of restlessness in adjusting all the pillows I have etc. I tried a couple times to sleep in the fetal position, but it’s really fruitless right now what with the pain I feel in my chest. That just feels crushing to me, and I ended up spending 10 or so minutes in that position only to re-adjust myself back to lying on my back again. So general consensus is that I may be sleeping about the same, but it’s much easier on my low back by sleeping (trying to sleep actually) on the bed. 

Woke on this morning to a throbbing chest again. Funny, but Judy and I were talking about my operation, and she asked me if, prior to the operation, I was afraid of dying during the operation. I told her that never entered my mind. I figured that I had so many opportunities to die over the past year and a half when I was doing American Dirt that the operation was going to be much safer! Looking at the blockages I had for the past year or two, I’m just freaked out by how lucky I’d been having ridden over mt pass after mt pass with no catastrophic cardiac episode. No, looking back at that day before the operation I was more focused on what I was going to feel like after the operation, specifically how much my chest was going to hurt post-operation. I was fully confident I was going to come through that operation. 

And I was right on with respect to the chest thing. It’s just astounding how much that pup can hurt. And I consider myself a hard ass who can deal with pain, but there are moments, especially when I cough or sneeze, that it just brings tears to my eyes. I’ve been off the pain meds now for over 3 full days, and I fully expect that I’m over the hump in that dept. despite the fact that I have some tough mornings and evenings to endure still down the road. 

So today, I was the once who had to tow the line, what with Judy’s back just killing her. We went shopping, and when done we had to carefully remove the groceries from the cart and put them, a couple at a time in the car. This because Judy could barely lift anything, and then I have this 10 lb restriction on my lifting. Ditto when we got back to the house. There we had to carry the groceries in a few at a time for about 3-4 trips each so we could keep the weight down on our loads. 

The real challenge of the day involved my pop. So my sister has just been an angle in helping me through all of this, from helping with all aspects of the hospitalization process, to my rehab, to staying with pop while I’m rehabbing at Judy’s. Anyway, she like has a REAL job as a doc, so she’s spread so thin it’s just amazing that she isn’t stressed to the max. Well, we had to get pop into the dentist today, and Kim just couldn’t take off work to do it. So Judy said she’d drive while I sat in the back seat of the car and we’d take pop in to see our dentist Doc Mike, a super guy who I used to race with when we were on the same cycling team.

Now remember, that pop has his memory issues. So we get to the house and I had to go through a whole long precess of reminding him over and over we were going in to see the dentist, getting him to wear some presentable clothing, and stopping him from rooting around the house for all his money clips and wallets and such. Kim and I take care of all that, only because pop looses that stuff constantly. So we get pop out of the house and into the car, and then he starts raving about Judy driving the car, asking over and over again if she’s insured to drive the car, and saying that he should be driving. This despite the fact that he doesn’t know he hasn’t driven for nearly 4 years! Now I’d told him that I had a cracked rib from a bad coughing incident (we did not tell him that I’d undergone open-heart surgery), so that’s why Judy was driving. Well, he was just getting incensed that we would not let him drive. And I have to say that I could feel my blood pressure just rising like a thermometer sitting out on the hot pavement in the sun. He just wouldn’t stop. Poor Judy was doing her very best to assure pop that “Pete has me on his insurance, so we’re ok Frank.” Meanwhile I’m in the back seat telling pop we’re good, and for the “5th time she’s insured dad, she’s insured!” That little incident told me that I’m still not ready to return to my full-time care giving position. Kim’s been dead-on right in that dept. 

That little incident also told me I have mental, as well as physical work to do as I rehab. For about 5 minutes within that car ride I could just feel my heart rate increase and I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I’m a type A personality kind of guy, and I excite easily, and that incident revealed the stresses I need to nix from my life. Just that little incident made me think about all the changes I have to make down the road. It’s going to be way more than making the physical changes that I look forward to engaging in. I think that the stresses I had lived with over the past several years of care-giving was another one of several factors for my coronary artery issues. Have to learn how to de-stress in those situations. 

Anyway, I took several deep breaths during pops hissy fit and just let Judy handle it. After that, at the dentist office, and going home, pop was wonderful. 

So the day ended with me doing a big part of the dinner making, again, because Judy was just miserable with her back. Now I made what I’d consider a pretty easy meal, but man, I was just slammed when I got done. I mean I just sat at the dinner table with my head resting on my arms atop the table. I was wiped out. But… I’m seeing slow forward progress in that I’m still getting crazy tired within the course of a day, but I’m able to do more. And tomorrow is the three-week mark from having my surgery, so thinking back to when I left the hospital on a Saturday with like zero energy and the ability to only walk about a block, to where I’m at right now. I’ll take that progress!