A couple of additional aspects of having returned home:
Heart rate:
My doctor's instructions were to take my medicines at eight hour intervals in the prescribed doses. For one medicine though, I was to take it or not to take it depending on my systolic blood pressure and my heart rate.
Post surgery while in the hospital, my heart rate was in the one-hundred-thirties, way too high above anything normal. I was told that those numbers were the result of atrial fibrillation and needed to come way down before I could be discharged. The heart rate stayed stubbornly high for several days which I think was beginning to cause some concern and then, one magical morning at 10:30 AM, the heart rate was seventy-one.
Subsequent readings were in the seventies as well so I was discharged.
At home, I needed to track my numbers too. I measured heart rates of 78, 80, 76, 69, 73, 76, 73, 84, 68, 72, 71, 68, 73, 68 which is just where they should be and then one night at 11 PM, I measured a very scary heart rate of 118.
Did that jump in heart rate mean I was lapsing back into atrial fibrillation?
I called my doctor and he told me to take my medicines as usual, then measure myself in the morning and call him to report the result whatever it may be. I did. The morning heart rate reading was 69. Good!!
On the night of that elevated number, I had been watching "The American Experience" on PBS television about the early days of NASA and the space program. It was part one of three. That first program had ended with footage from the Kennedy assassination to which I felt myself react. I asked my doctor if the elevated heart rate could have come from that reaction and the doctor said it might be so.
During my next visit from the visiting nurse, I related this story and she said that what had happened to me was not at all unusual. Stresses of most any kind can produce results like that. She told me that when she arrives at a patient's home, she always takes the "vitals" measurements first thing before discussing anything that might evoke a stress response.
I felt better.
Egotism:
With Judy, it's always been possible to discuss a multitude of topics. We talk about the grandsons, what's in the news, about the house and the yard, but with everyone else, it's sometimes hard to do that.
Through all this heart trouble, I have conversed at length with other family members, with friends, with doctors, with nurse practitioners, with nurses and with therapists. The discussion topics have covered the range of me, myself, me personally, yours truly, this kid, number one and numero uno. I'm buoyed up by the words of concern and encouragement that have been addressed to me, but also, that diverse range of topics has had the effect of making me feel guilty of becoming some kind of prima donna.
It just isn't comfortable. I am getting very impatient to be well.
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