On September 16, 2002, Mr. CrazyOldLady had bypass surgery.
After being in the hospital for only 5 days, he came home on the 20th,
and is doing well so far.
There are good days and bad days. It's very frustrating to for him
to be unable to do with ease all the ordinary everyday things he's
used to doing. He tends to forget that someone just recently opened
his chest and ripped his heart out, fiddled with it and then replaced
it.
We do a minimal sort of rehab for the first four weeks. We do have
to walk a little twice a day, and have been really doing more than
the minimum requirement walking further each day if he wants.
Fortunately, we have a very nice park right across the street which
actually makes walking quite pleasant, even restful. It's still slow
going, but it sure feels good to be out in the sunshine. He is now
able to walk a reasonable distance, i.e. more than a block, so we're
up to a quarter mile or a little more some days.
He still tires fairly quickly and has some pain, but he says it's
not too bad. We just go day by day.
We've also been lucky that the weather is as nice as it is. Fall is
always a great season in Illinois.
We can also go in the car for short trips if I drive, of course. This
drives him crazy, but we manage, and we have been able to go to the
studio for a couple hours or so a day. Today we even uploaded books
and stuff to , so we'll begin to generate some cash flow again.
All in all, right now, it has it's depressing moments for both of
us, but the upside is that he will be better than ever sometime in
the near future...at least that's the plan! The depression goes with
the territory, or so I read, along with some evident sort term memory
loss which is also supposed to be temporary.
Bottom line? Even though it is all a slow process, some progress results,
and it's really not even three weeks yet.