The Day They Stopped My Heart

The day before surgery, they didn't call until 4:56 pm to tell me when to report for pre-op the next day. The time I drew was late: I was to be at the hospital between 10 and 10:30 the next morning.

I was allowed no food or drink after midnight, so the main effect of the later start time was hunger and thirst during the pre-op rituals. No big deal there.

At the hospital, we found out how well Northwestern does at managing family contact with the patient. Someone was with me nearly the whole time as we prepared for surgery. When it was time to go, family walked with me next to the gurney right up to the entrance of the surgical suite. After one last good-luck kiss, they rolled me in a little before 1 pm and I was met by the anesthesiologist.

The anesthesiologist said she was going to give me a "general cocktail" to relax me and started an infusion in the IV at my wrist. The last thing I remember is making some quip about how she was welcome to make mine a martini.

* * * * *

Many feel the most peaceful death would come during sleep. Thus I faced the actual surgery with a resigned sort of peace. The doctor gave only a "one percent" chance of death during surgery attributable to anesthesia, heart-lung machine failure and so forth. I must admit that during the last few hours before surgery, I had started to wonder just how they would re-awaken my heart after shutting it down for 90-minutes to do the actual repairs. I was sure they had a long track record of success, but it was one of those details I would have dug into if I'd had a few more days to prepare. In any case, I figured that if anything went terribly wrong during surgery, I would never know and my last conscious moments would have been peaceful.

The fight, I knew, would start when I awoke. After surgery, it would require tremendous energy and will to endure the pain, shake off the effects of anesthesia and re-awaken and control my various subdued body systems.

Fortunately, I had done all this once before. As a teenager I'd had major surgery for a kidney-related matter. That adventure decades ago looked easy beforehand so it had been quite a shock to me when I woke up after surgery and realized what a sad state I was in. (My father recalls my first words afterward being "It hurts!") Of course medicine has changed a great deal in the thirty-some-odd years since then and Northwestern is a cutting edge teaching hospital. Both factors would work in my favor.

* * * * *

I awoke in a spacious corner room of the cardiovascular intensive care unit--"the CVICU." My first real thought was: "This isn't so bad."

Mostly, I wasn't in a great deal of pain. Some things were numb, I could tell, but it wasn't a huge area. I still felt whole, still felt the integrity of my torso. That seemed like a very good sign.

Then I quickly realized I had missed a great deal between my quip about martinis and this no-nonesense recovery suite. I remembered no shaving, no scrubbing, no coverings or probes. I remember nothing of the surgical room itself: no nurses, no bright lights, no team of masked professionals surrounding me. And I had no vision of my green-gowned doctor holding sapling-like gloved hands vertically in front of him as he spoke words of reassurance.

Every detail of what had transpired from the entry foyer of the surgical suite to this ICU room had vanished. And that, I decided, was just fine.

* * * * *

I awoke in the ICU at about 10 pm, I think. One nurse (Stephanie) attended me virtually full-time, taking notes at her computer desk in the corner and dashing around the room for other ministrations. She soon told me that my family had visited soon after I arrived but that they had all gone home for the evening.

Those first few hours were challenging, thanks mostly to my breathing tube. When you are forced to cede the most basic of instincts to a machine, it isn't fun. And then fluids flow in places that they don't normally go. That's probably enough said on that topic. Stephanie kept telling me to relax. Then she helpfully pointed out that my wrists were restrained so I should stop trying to get my hands up there to pull the tube out myself. Then she told me to relax some more. I eventually found ways to cope with the worst sensations, did what was required to demonstrate independent breathing and finally, sometime around midnight, got the breathing tube removed.

So day 1 ended happily. I'd survived. I'd rid myself of the breathing tube and was breathing on my own. Life was looking pretty good!