I'm ready to go.
I hope to leave Houston in a few hours. My open heart surgery was on August 11, so I'm about two weeks and a day post-surgery.
To briefly (subjective reference) cover my backstory for those who haven't followed some of my stuff, I've been in treatment for a year (chemos, etc.) for cardiac angiosarcoma, a respectably large blood vessel sarcoma tumor in the right atrium of my heart. When it was finally diagnosed, the sarcoma had metastasized to my lungs. After several cycles of different chemos (see my blog) and an initial attempt to get surgery in March which failed due to the growing size of the tumor, good docs at MD Anderson and Methodist Hospital in Houston agreed to try resection of the heart tumor. By last January, all metastasis in my lungs had been apparently cleared by the chemo.
I flew down here on August 2 in prep for the surgery. Some delay was caused by a change in hospitals for the surgery. My doc had submitted a new protocol for the surgery to Methodist and it hadn't been approved by the time I arrived, so the surgery was moved to MD Anderson and a different surgical team, where my surgeon, Dr. Michael J. Reardon, also has operating permissions. Dr. Reardon and Dr. David Rice at MD Anderson were the operating primary surgeons for my resection and it seems they've done a fantastic job. I'm alive!
A cardiac MRI done on August 3 showed that the tumor had gone outside the right atrium and grown over the top of my right coronary artery, encasing it. Though catherization showed that there were no blockages of any arteries or veins in my heart (yay!), the encompasing tumor was directly threatening the integrity of the artery.
My surgery was approximately four and a half hours on Wednesday, August 11. A saphenous artery in my right thigh was removed and used to replace the coronary artery, so I have two blocks of sutures on my upper inner thigh that measure approximately six inches in length. It feels it bit like my thigh has tight hose on it (ugh) and other than some pulling discomfort, there's not much irration or pain..yet. The nerves are still pretty dead. I probably won't be doing much high or broad jumping anytime soon.
I have a rather puckery looking thin 12 inch scar down the very middle of my chest, from the midpoint of my collarbone to about four inches above my navel. Honestly, it's hard to tell that my chest was pried open a couple of weeks ago, or that I spent three and a half days in ICU trying to breath properly so that they would pull the breathing tube out of me.
They removed the tumor and some outside margin area - a space according to a pathology report that measured 6.5 centimeters by 5.5 centimeters by 2.5 centimeters. If you can do the conversion, there are 2.54 centimeters in an inch. So that banana slug was pretty good size and the bovine pericardium tissue they used to replace it is significant in size as well. Most of my right atrium wall, and a part of the adjoining left atrium wall was replaced. My blood pressure is nearly back to normal - usually around 111/60. Not too f**king bad, eh? But this is a new heart for me, and I'm feeling a little weird with it. I hope we get used to one another, my heart and I.
My kids tell me pictures of my scar are far too graphic; in fact, even the description may be unsettling to some of you. For that I apologize. I have to admit, I'm a bit proud of my battle scars. Thick skin and the ability to open one's eyes each morning to see the sun are proving to be great weapons for me. I'm a lucky gal, well, until I'm not anymore, and we'll worry about that later.
I may tell another tale about my ICU experiences some day, and how difficult it is to communicate when your mouth and nose are full of tubes...like tapping your wrist to ask your twenty-something kids what time it is and realizing that they don't understand that wrist-tapping means "look at your watch and tell me the time". Twenty-somethings use cell phones for time, not watches. My charades and sign languages efforts are obsolete...what a time to discover one is so arcane!
I know I'm doing extraordinarily well right now. Well, my heart is beating strong and I'm still ornery. I was able to get out Tuesday night here in Houston and see Dem in the Heart, our fellow Kossack, perform in a recital with her husband at the University of Houston's School of Music Opera House. And yesterday, I met up with her in the late afternoon for about three hours of wonderful chat and a latte at a nearby Houston Starbucks. Almost like being home in Seattle - time with friends at the local coffee place...ahhh. Normalcy is such a fine, divine thing, if we can just appreciate it when we have it, I suppose.
So, as long as my surgeon gives me the go-ahead, I'll be on a plane later this evening back home to Seattle. A four hour flight over a darkened continent, states dry and hot, cool and cloudy, red and blue. At thirty thousand feet, my only real fear that I have, which is not so much because I'm not a fearful flyer, is that we experience cabin decompression. I have no idea what happens to recent heart sutures in that situation. I guess I should ask my surgeon, eh?
Thank you, thank you to all of you who have been following my progress and especially to Nurse Kelley and to Dem in the Heart of Texas, and to my kids who did Facebook updates on my page the day of the surgery.
I'll try to check in periodically in comments when I can...I'll be leaving for the doctor's office shortly and then hopefully waiting at the airport for our flight home.
I'm ready to fly.
Update...2 AM Pacific time. Thank you all so much. I'm home, in bed with three of my woozles, loving the cool Seattle night. See you all tomorrow.
-exme