Flappy no more!

Zora writes:

Peter made the mistake of giving me his logon info, so now I can report firsthand on my fas-kinating health saga!

OK, not so fas-kinating: Antibiotics still not delivered, as the guy is stuck in traffic. [ed note: Zora is in San Francisco after her follow-up appointment with her surgeon. She’ll be back in Santa Cruz after her drugs are delivered] Tried to go buy more of the delicious cake from the other night, but the bakery was closed. Also attempted to exchange loungewear for smaller size, and it wasn’t in stock. All this during rush hour. Now twiddling thumbs chez Emily, where she has kindly left her computer out for me to use.

At least the earlier part of the day went according to plan. The doctor said everything looks fine (though I “might not want to go windsurfing yet”—typical Merrick understated humor) [ed note: Whoo boy, what a card! Merrick always cracks them up at the annual conference of cardio-thoracic surgeons]. And the nurse said I had a beautiful x-ray—the lungs were so crisp and clear they practically went ‘bling!’ on the image. She listened to my heart and said, “Gosh, Dr. Merrick is so good at what he does!” That would sound cheesy if she were talking about anyone else, but I’m happy to have her gush about me.

She also said my back pain (and, ahem, slouching to avoid it) was normal, a result of their having to crack open my rib cage and pull it apart. She also said that younger people experience more pain with this surgery—because when you’re older, your nerves aren’t quite so responsive. I guess they get jaded? Like, “I’ve told this guy a million times there’s something wrong with his back, but 30 years and he still doesn’t listen...I give up.” So when she put it that way, well, I guess I’ll just take more Vicodin and thank modern medicine again.

Red blood cell levels are up from 26 or 28 to 31.4, with normal defined as 35 to 40—so Tamara and Karine were doing something right. And I can stop taking my pacerone, which was a prophylactic for arrhythmia [ed note: Arrhythmia—an irregular heart beat—is a concern after heart surgery]—this is good because it turns out one of the side effects of that drug is that it messes up your taste buds. I’ve been having these occasional moments of ‘eeww’ while eating recently, so that explains that.

So, overall a good visit—it definitely put my parents at ease. But I can’t quite enjoy the positivity and Merrick’s “Eh, you’ll be fine!” attitude because the last doctor who said that to me (Gumprecht) was subsequently saying, “Oh shit!” when Peter called to tell him I was in the emergency room with a dead left eye. There’s also a small matter of one of the cultures they took during the surgery developing a little growth of...er, bacillus sirius? Something like that—haven’t had a chance to Google. All the docs agreed it was a lab mistake, though. Hmmm.

I’ll just concentrate on the here and now, I guess: I did get my little lung-tube-hole sutures pulled out. Gross. But the area hurts a lot less already.