Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. ~ H L Mencken

Rev Kane’s Wild Ride: Normalish

It’s been 6 full weeks since my surgery, which is the half-way point between surgery and returning to my god awful job. I really targeted 8 weeks after surgery as a major milestone for a couple of reasons. First, it was when my doctor said I could travel, and second the first stage of healing for your breast bone is 6-8 weeks. Think of this as the point they would cut the cast off of a broken arm. Your arm isn’t fully healed but the bone is knit back together and you can gradually begin to use your arm nearly normal or as I prefer, normalish.

The 8 week mark is when I’ll feel comfortable making some changes, sleeping a little less, head up, expanding my mobility and stretching. I can’t do any resistance work until after 12 weeks and it will be 4 – 6 months before my chest will be back to what I’ll feel comfortable calling normal. I’ll get a lot more details on this when I start my cardiovascular rehab class and program in July.

But here in week 6 we’ve entered the dangerous land of normalish. Meaning that I feel really good and at times feel completely normal. At other moments I am reminded my chest was recently sliced open and then cracked open like a lobster, mmm lobster, I really need to get some lobster soon. For instance, I woke up to go to the bathroom the other night and normally got up out of bed. As soon as I stood up I thought, “shit, I’m not supposed to do that.” I had used my arms, just slightly to get up.

So, I’m doing a few things to remind myself I’m not back to normal yet. As you can see in the picture, I still have my hospital bracelet on, it’s just a subtle way to remind myself I’m not that far out from surgery. It’s easy to remember in the bathroom or shower or any other time I’m parading around topless (you’re welcome for the visual), as there’s this very noticeable scalpel line that runs down the center of my chest. They’ve done a great job with the wound, to the point that it looks like I’ve been freshly cut and just haven’t started to bleed yet. Without the blood it kind of looks like what you’d see if you sliced an android’s skin and that absolutely fucks with my mind a bit.

My days have gotten much more normal, there are far fewer people visiting, by design. I will say again I’ve been humbled by the help and support people have provided. Although it’s interesting, not a single one of my bosses has reached out to see how I’m doing. But this week I did a magazine interview on Monday and coordinated some others to be part of the piece. Tuesday a friend came over and helped me get the tiny patio garden back into shape.

On Wednesday I had an appointment to get equipment to do a sleep study, today I had to return the equipment and had an diabetic retinopathy exam. Then I treated myself to a Jersey Mike’s sub and some chips, they’re the only chain that does a decent approximation of an east coast Italian sub. Tomorrow I have a home nursing appointment and have to pick up packages at the package locker and basically every time I’m out I do a little grocery shopping. It’s been a busy week, I’ve even started looking at job opportunities and am exploring a couple of positions. On top of things I continue to increase my walks, today I did my first continuous two mile walk, about a third of it uphill, I do a little over three miles a day, but I’m closing in on four miles.

In terms of the vitals that I record each day things have been generally good, the only thing I’m not thrilled with is that my resting heart rate has remained high, this is neither unusual or unexpected but it bugs me. It was quite high for a week, over 100, but happily over the last five days has been trending downward and this morning was 91. If I can get that back into the 80 beat per minute range, I’ll be really happy.

So it’s easy right now to forget things aren’t normal, at least until I drop something on the floor. My great fear is dropping my car keys while I’m out and having to stand around like a dope until someone walks by who I can ask for help, so far that hasn’t happened. When I go for my walks I carry a cane, I don’t really use it, but it signals to people that there’s an issue and to give me some space, because without the cane, I look exactly as I did pre-surgery just with a more raggedy beard and a lot less stressed.

So, 6 weeks out, 6 weeks of easing back into semi-normality and work to go. ~ Rev Kane