Monday, May 21, 2018

Heart Surgery Update: Wife Edition

It's been over a year since I've blogged. To some degree I can't believe I put it off so long, but mainly I can't believe January 2017 was already over a year ago! Last time I wrote around the issue of my battle with uterine fibroids. It lead to a full abdominal myomectomy to remove a large fibroid just a couple months after writing. Now I write from a hospital room for my husband who just had open vascular surgery a few days ago. I think my husband and I need a pact: let's leave the organs in our core alone for awhile! :)

I joke, but frankly this is different. It's open vascular surgery which automatically makes it intense. On top of that though, we've had a pretty serious role reversal. Phill doesn't seem to know it, but he's a natural caretaker and nurturer when someone he loves is suffering. I've been through several surgeries as a kid, at least one in college, two since we've been married, and I'm a general klutz so I run into things a lot. He's good at nurturing; I'm good at suffering. It's the perfect relationship. Things are different now. Now I am figuring out what it means to care for my normally very independent husband.

People have been asking me how I'm doing with all this. If you asked me this and I ignored your question, it's because I haven't had an answer. Truthfully, I'm still trying to put into words how I am doing. Hence why I'm writing this blog post. Waiting the many hours between when they took him to the operating room and when they let me see him in recovery was heart wrenching. When I learned I could see him, I thought it would be a huge sigh of relief. Though he was asleep when I got in, it was comforting seeing his chest rising and falling as well as seeing his solid numbers they were monitoring (pulse, blood pressure, oxygen, etc). What wasn't comforting was everything else. My lively husband had gray lips. His skin was white. He was hooked up to a million things. When he woke up he was in pain, though he fell asleep promptly so it didn't last long. His color returned the very next day and he's made incredible progress, but that image hung with me. How could someone so lively look so... dead?

Since then I've been trying to discover my role in all this: how do I take care of him? How do I take care of me? I've discovered some ways to do this since Thursday: going on walks by myself, sleeping when I can, holding his hand as they pull long tubes out of his chest, providing emotional support for him, and learning how I will assist him when it's time to come home. I don't think I realized how emotionally and physically draining it is taking care of another person - especially a person I love so dearly.

So how am I doing? Most of the time I'm drained. I'm ready to have him home and ready to watch his progress. But I'm also grateful. I'm grateful that we've received so much love and support from our closest loved ones. I'm grateful that we are at one of the best heart hospitals in the country. I'm grateful that Phill refuses to let anything stop him from pushing forward and recovering. Sure, I'm tired and worn, but I'm also secure. I'm secure in our incredible support system and most importantly in the hands of God. My prayer time is mostly me sitting in quiet saying, "Father, I'm so tired. I need help." Right now that's enough.