Except less rock ‘n’ roll!

The days continue with the enforced routine of my current mobility and the pandemic restrictions. We are largely house bound with only an occasional medical appointment on the horizon to break up the weeks.

But I only have two weeks left before my first formal appointment with my cardiologist since the bypass operation. The exciting thing for my wife and I is that that appointment is in the city where our kids live. So this will be the first time we have seen them since I went for surgery.

After that I have a follow up phone call with another cardiologist who will be managing my medications following my the blood tests that I went for today.

Self managing

I have often thought about how odd it is to have such a major procedure as bypass surgery and then to be left to my own devices without any medical oversight for six weeks. A major contrast to the full on support you have at hospital. I believe that this isn’t the typical situation and that perhaps I would have had more reviews if we didn’t have COVID-19 to deal with.

I have a checklist of items on a photocopied page which tell me to either phone my family Doctor or 911. Not very reassuring as it is likely to be a new experience for my mind and body when I would have to act on one of those choices.

Progress - I don’t really know?

So without any checks with medical professionals and purely on the basis that I don’t currently trigger any checklist actions, I think I’m making progress with my recovery.

My body is visibly healing as dramatic scars develop and our my future body image. I still suffer from pain at times but these are aches and cramps and nothing like the real pain following the procedure. In a strange way this journal has been useful to me to go back and remind myself of what I have been through. It sort of puts in to balance where I am at now.

Sleeping remains a challenge and with only a three to four hours very night, I struggle with the day that follows. I can’t wait to get a consistent night’s sleep...

The ol’ grey matter

It was inevitable...

I have long “suffered” with being mentally restless, my brain constantly turning over ideas, plans and inventing new stuff. The problem has been that this tends to happen at night and leads to my insomnia.

So it was inevitable that as the physiological and psychological balance changes again - the physical and mental impact of my bypass receding and the “normal” me being restored - that my mental activity would kick back in.

It makes me restless during the day and drives me to busy myself with new things to do or to take on new roles or challenges. Typically it is put in to check by my professional life which, when I am at work, is all dominating. Too much so in fact.

But I know this. I sense the imbalance in myself and periodically, (at least once a year) I start the search for the next new challenge.

A fork in the road

So I have come to realize that with my physical recovery comes a need for some mental rehabilitation. I feel the need to continue to share my progress, or otherwise, for all the same reasons that I have written this down so far.

I have never risked doing that before when I have struggled mentally and wrestled with who I am or what I do all this for. So this is going to be as challenging mentally and emotionally as the physicality of a quadruple heart bypass.

Perhaps I am overdue a good old mid life crisis?! I must check with my wife if I have had one of those already and was too self absorbed to realize!

I am going to pause here as my mind is already turning over where this could go for me.