Well, what a journey! The wait for lungs is finally over! Success!After an 8 hour surgery, Darren was able to visit me at 7:30 am on February 22, 2008! The nurse woke me and I could hear Darren, Jill and the nurse by my side, but I could not answer or make any hand gestures - even though I was trying my best to do so! I do remember Darren cracking some joke and they tell me I shook my head in 'shame' - as for those of you who know Darren - it was something 'off the cuff' for sure! Apart from that, I remember thinking to myself - "Is it over already? That was too quick to be major surgery! Did something go wrong?" Darren reassured me that everything went fine and I was doing extremely well so soon out of surgery! I was pleased and drifted off to sleep again.
Come 2:00 pm that day, Darren returned to the hospital (from taking a well deserved nap) to find me wide awake! I haven't looked back since! I have to admit that the one night that I had the breathing tube still inserted, I was pretty pissed with it - it was SOOOOO irritating! Luckily I didn't have it too long - it was removed the day following surgery!
But even with the tube in - I still knew things were great! See - two thumbs up! I'm doin' fine!
As you can see, we're both relieved to have the tube removed! Everything feels so different! Apart from the pain of the 4 chest tubes - I'm feeling GREAT! Luckily the docs know the right combo of pain meds now to keep me comfortable - but alert! I had a few days of 'way too many pain meds' which left me 'out-of-it'. Darren got quite the kick out of me so drowsy - LOL - glad someone did! Apparently I was making NO sense at all ... not something I want to revisit!WHAT A DIFFERENCE! I've been asked over and over about "how it feels to breath" - honestly, I can't answer that! All I can say is "it's just so different"! Completely different from my old CF lungs! No wheezing, no coughing, no shortness of breath, no gasping for air, NO OXYGEN! I can actually take a deep breath! I don't even remember how long it's been since I've been able to breath like this! I thought prior to transplant I was 'pretty healthy' for a CFer - boy was I wrong! Then again I guess for someone with 30 years of lung damage -just being able to open my eyes is 'good'!
Ok, ok, now you know I couldn't go without a foolish picture of me! This was the "will you frig off Darren" face! LOL!
36 hours after surgery - here I am! WALKING! I don't remember much of the ICU or Step-down units, but as you can see, I was wide awake - I guess - LOL! However, I do remember getting up and walking - mainly because of how easy it was breathing wise! Of course the pain helps to jog the memory too - hehe! Nevertheless, nothing was stopping me now! It felt great to actually get out of bed and walk around without getting short of breath!
The doctors were quite pleased with my progress - so much so, they removed 2 of the chest tubes before I left step-down ... the whole 3 days I spent there! I'm after a record breaker if you haven't figured it out ... so far I'm ahead of most ... LOL!
I was moved down to the 7th Floor on on Tuesday, February 26, 2008 - here's where I'll stay until the tubes come out and I can go 'home'! The tubes are doing more draining than the docs had hoped - but its nothing uncommon. We're going to leave them a little longer to get the fluid out - then I'll be ready to go!
Everyone including me are quite pleased and surprised at my recovery ... it's full steam ahead now!
