It was an early start yesterday morning at 5:30 am as my nephew and I cranked up my old van, with Buddy along to supervise for the four hour ride, including a fuel and food stop, from Charlotte, NC to Charleston, SC for my first checkup after my five bypass heart surgery. We arrived in Charleston a little early, so I managed to get to see the doctor a little early and just as I expected it was time to go see the vampire and get some blood test done, which meant we had to set around for a couple of hours for the results.
Sean, my nephew, had taken a day off of work to take me down there, as I can't drive for another month and I can't ride my bike for another six weeks, due to the fact that I can't lift more than eight pounds of weight, in order to let my sternum heal, where they spread me open and I do believe that controlling the ol' VIAGRO will take more than eight pounds of movement at times, so I'm not taking any chances.
I let Sean and my beagle Buddy, sleep in the van, as it is fully self contained with a full size bed, microwave, satellite TV, on board generator and 110 volt roof air conditioner to keep them cool in the 105 heat indexed temperature , as there was no need for him to wait in the waiting room for me.
I got the results back from the lab and was given a good report from the doctors, with only a direction to quit one of the heart medications in three weeks. They, as well as I were thrilled with my progress and the only complaints that I had, were a sourness along the "ZIPPER" incisions on my leg, a little over three feet long and my chest about one foot long. They informed me, that was normal and it would last a little while longer, especially where the sternum is healing under the chest incision. I also asked about the swelling in my leg and that was normal also. They did give me an elastic stoking to wear on my leg, to help keep the swelling at a minimum and it does work.
I had tried to take myself off of the pain killers last Monday, but took one for the trip down and another on the way back for discomfort, but I've gotten by without any today and hope that I can get along without anymore, as I don't want to take them, if I don't have to, plus I'm already taking twenty two pills a day, for my kidney transplant, that I had back in 1976 and other related OLD FART medical problems. I just celebrated twenty years, being Clean and Sober, on August 1 and I really don't want to fall back into my bygone addiction ways. Twenty years of recovery is not easy to get and I want to keep it going, one day at a time.
Thanks for the continuing thoughts and prayers, as I have been getting well wishes in phone calls, email's, cards and internet forum posts, form my many radio and motorcycle friends, classmates, other friends and relatives from all over the world, you will never know how much they mean to me and help to give me a positive outlook for my recovery.
My immediate goals are to start walking more than I am already and as much as I can around the neighborhood here, by my nephews home, who I am staying with for the next month or so, to help in my recovery and try to keep the weight off that I have lost, as that will be easier on my heart. I have gained back two pounds of the total of twenty seven pounds and I'm wearing levis size 36 waist c that I haven't worn in ten or more years, compared to the size 40 that I was wearing, eat your hearts out gals, but I wouldn't recomend getting the bulk of the weight off the way I did. Hopefully I will have to get more of my clothes altered in the future.
I'm hoping that my experience of going through this, will encourage some of you, to go get a heart checkup because of this and hopefully, if you do have a problem starting, it will be detected early enough, so that the doctors can treat it with medication and not surgery, believe me, it wasn't very much fun.
John "FLAGMAN" Finn
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