Closing The Heart Chapter 2024
Heart....why are you beating like a drum? Happy New Year
The year of Open Heart Surgery is now behind me.
The picture above is Tina and me on the day I was admitted to the hospital less than 24 hours before I was knocked out and had my chest opened.
Fun times.
The video you are about to watch is from the I am on Drugs in ICU files….
For a few weeks post-surgery, I was very high. Underneath that opiod mask was a level of pain that needed to be shut off to me. One night I waited too long between my hits of pain relief and I found myself kneeling next to the bed crying and wanting everything to stop.
Yeah, that was a low point.
But it did not take long to get to Panadol as my pain relief…..and the hard stuff was put to bed.
A few weeks passed and then I had A/Fib and had to go back to the hospital to get my heart electrified by Dr. Paul Sparks.
3 months passed. Then we went to Garma in East Arnhem Land.
It was an amazing trip….even if illness did screw me around a wee bit…I fought it off.
Covid came and went. I busted some ribs.
We get to November, and I am still not feeling like my old self. My old self before surgery was fine when I had no known symptoms. Now I felt fatigued and sweated profusely at night and was depressed. There was little joy in anything I did.
I thought, “Well, this is what it is like to recover from someone touching your heart.”
A month ago I did some research and found it was the Sotalol that was messing me up. I have stopped it and I feel BETTER THAN I DID BEFORE SURGERY. All my weird ass symptoms, physical and psychological, are gone.
My running had stopped during COVID-19. I thought I was just old. No, it was a symptom, a subconscious system. I have now started jogging again and am on a programme to run 5 Ks in 9 weeks. It feels good, and the body just loves this movement.
I missed it. I missed ME.
May you have a healthy, happy, loving and connected 2025.
LOVE IS THE ANSWER….
Nice one champ !!