May 24: Moving from Lakewood to Stow at Judy’s for my rehab.
May 23: Not a super night of sleep from Sunday night into Monday, but way, way better than any night of sleep I’d had in the hospital. Feel like I’m incrementally better at being able to lift myself on and off of the couch, while still being cognizant of not putting too much pressure on my sternum sutures. Sometimes it feels as though those sutures are so tight that they’re pulling my shoulders inward, protracting them rather than all the retraction I’d been working on prior to the trip.
Sis had figured that all my years of cycling had kind of hunched me over, rolling my shoulders inward, so I’d been instructed to work on improving my posture by pushing my shoulders backwards, retracting them such that I was kind of expanding my rib cage. So I’d been working on that for the better part of a year now. Ok, so now with this open heart operation those sutures are so tight that for me to push my shoulders back, to retract them, it feels as though I’m about to pop all those sutures. I mean they are so freaking tight. So when we’re talking about all the rehab I have in front of me, man I had that to do to, working on regaining any semblance of flexibility in my chest/rib cage area.
Able to work for several hours in the morning on the computer and then I did like this 30 min walk. Felt slow, but ok. It’s just crazy how damned fatigued I get right now. So got in from the walk and then attempted to wash myself without taking the shower - right now they don’t want me to had a direct stream of water on the sutured areas of my body. Did the Mt. Everest climb up the two flights of stairs to the shower room. That in itself is a workout! Had to wash my hair under the spigot, then use body soap and a washrag to kind of dry wash my zippered upper body and left arm. Did the same for my lower body. Sat there kind of doing a REC couple minutes sitting on the floor resting from the work I’d just done washing myself. Just amazing my current state of fitness. Then I did the long ass descent down those two flights of stairs to the couch where I just crashed for 4 hours of cat napping.
The real challenge of the day was making dinner for Mike and I. I did this super easy stir fry recipe. But I’m telling you I had so many REC sessions in there that I must have taken me 1.5 hrs to prep what would normally take me about 30 min to prep. Let the pork marinade for 1 hr then I had Mike fish out Kim’s wok from under a ton of cookware that I just didn’t have the strength to move. Cooked a pretty decent meal and that was it. I retired to the couch for another napping session while Mike cleaned up the kitchen. That day to me was just BIG! And the thing I learned from that dinner is that I’m going to have to settle on some pretty simple dishes when I attempt to cook right now. That’s really going to impact me when I make the move back home and begin taking care of dad again.
And there is a whole other issue there, our pop. I’ve been a live-in care giver for years now. Thankfully, my sis, her boyfriend, our friend Karen and her daughter, they’ve all pitched in since my heart issues and helped with looking after dad. Dad has dementia and cannot recall things much past 5 or so minutes in the past. So explaining this whole dilemma of where I’d been, what has happened to me, how long I’ve been gone, that’s going to be outside his realm of understanding. So I’m really going to have to kind of just return as if nothing has happened, with zippers on my chest and arm, and with a limited amount of energy to operate on. I’m hoping that another week of me getting taken care of will give me enough strength to get back into the care giver role again. I just have to be super careful not to overdo it. Anyway, this is going to be the next challenge in my road to recovery.