Birthday

Take off everything but your birthday suit.

My surgery appointment was 5:15 a.m. One year ago just now I was lying on a gurney, bundled up warm and snug, clutching a bottle of nitrostat tablets, alone in the enormous corridor of the operating center at the Cleveland Clinic heart institute. Friends and loved ones had given me a hug, Father Steve had anointed my forehead with oil, and I was wheeled away to my destiny! 

Mine was the first gurney to arrive, and the only one so far. Huge sliding doors opened into innumerable operating rooms on both sides of the hallway. Large machines were being wheeled into various ORs being prepped for surgery, technicians, doctors and nurses gathering. The door to my OR rolled open, someone came out and introduced himself as my anesthesiologist, chatted with me a moment, and probably slipped me a mickey. More machines were wheeled in. Other gurneys began arriving and were parked outside other ORs. A few minutes later my gurney was rolled into the OR. On one side of the room, my surgeon, Dr. Joseph Sabik, conferred with other surgeons, nurses and technicians as others shifted me from the gurney to the operating table. A drip was started, and that was it. 

Friends and neighbors, open heart surgery is as easy as that. Piece of cake. No worries, you don’t feel or know a thing. The previous evening I had rehearsed in my mind all the old memories that I wanted to dream while I was out of it during surgery. That rehearsal had been fun, but turned out to be a complete waste: there was not one dream, no memories, simply total absence. 

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2011 1:40 PM, CST

Day 1: Extraordinary Time

Dad is out of surgery. The surgeon said it could not have gone better. Replaced aortic valve, two bypass grafts, and it was going so well that he repaired the mitral valve for good measure.

We can see him in ICU in about an hour.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. We will keep you posted on his recovery until he tears this iPad out of my hands!

Tass, reporting for:

Linda, Tass and Joe

Today is my sister’s birthday, she’s 39 again. Linda says this is my birthday too now, one year old in my new life!!

Open heart surgery? Piece of cake. Chocolate. 

Tom+ in +Time