First and foremost - my son is recovering beautifully. The surgery was a success, and his recovery is on track with his team's expectations. We are energetically spongy people, he and I, so we FEEL the good vibes that were sent our way - and we're grateful to all of you who sent them.
And so back to re-entry.
HIM: He's not quite there yet... he has another month or so of restrictions before returning to work, and won't be mostly healed for a further 3 to 9 months. But wow, he's feeling really good.
ME: And despite being back home and at my desk for the last 3 or 4 weeks, I can honestly say, I'm only just beginning to get there. I'm still trying to recover from the months of stress, and I'm still weary to my core.
Yes, MONTHS
Without making a long slog of the details, we knew this surgery would happen this year, and as of February, we had the date booked for early May. We knew, in the abstract, what was on the menu: chest crack, bypass machine, cutting down excess heart muscle, potential replacement valve (didn't need it), potential pacemaker (didn't need it) and anything else they though worthy of a tweak while they had access (ablation and clipping for A-fib got added on the fly), then zip it all back together and off he would go.1
He's a researcher. By the time we got to the surgery he could almost recite the steps. Needless to say, the journey from February to May included a LOT of information that would make anyone second guess everything. It certainly added some curl to my hair.
I'm his major sounding board for that stuff. He processes verbally, as do I, talking it out over and over until it sounded more normal, more matter of fact. My job was to hold him up and listen. And my support system held me up through that. They gave me a place to verbally process my fear and horror so I could bring my best game face for him.
And so game day arrived.
It all went so very well, but I can tell you that I never, ever, EVER, want to sit in a waiting room while they carve on my kid again in this lifetime. I don't want to watch him fight for courage in the face of so much fear again (despite how much I admire him for it). To know that he was technically not alive while they bypassed his heart to fix it was too damn much. It's STILL too damn much. To watch him struggle with gobsmacking pain (we redheads have extra pain management issues) when all I could do was put a cool cloth on his head was too damn much. To watch the medical team put him through painful therapies for his own good was too damn much.
The day I gave birth to him I understood that the prime directive from here out was to keep him safe, and it was too damn much to surrender that to the profit-or-bust medical establishment in today's USA. His team looked great on paper, and in person they were amazing, but hey, it's still MY kid.
Talk about the feral mama bear lurking beneath the polite surface.
And talk about all my fancy art education being utterly useless in the face of so many tubes and wires and machines and tests and readings and drug cocktails. It brought out shades of good old Doc McCoy on Star Trek, but with a twist... "dammit, Jim, I'm an artist, not a doctor..."
Five days after surgery, they pulled the last tube out and let us leave. It felt like when he was born... "off you go, you can take him home now." I felt so unqualified then, and not much more this time: my internal monolog was yelling "ARE YOU SURE???? I mean, you guys just dug your way to China through his chest..."
HOME: His dog was thrilled and agressively protective. The cats, of course, were completely non-plussed. His wife and I took over the nursing (mostly her, with her shiny new nursing degree) and all the rest of the household running (mostly me).
I will point out here that my son, his wife, and yours truly (and the dog) have BIG personalities. And we were in the same house for a month. And we managed to not have a single cross word with each other. I'm proud of us, but this was not a low stress season for any of us, no matter how much we love each other.
And so four weeks after surgery, and doing so well he was cleared to drive early, he dropped me at the airport and home I came. I love being with him, but craved my home, my bed, my routines. As did he and his wife (and the dog).
And now I'm in my own version of recovery. The months of stress have caught up with me and I'm just so tired, and really trying to honor the rest (physical and mental) my body is clamoring for. I wanted to be back full force within a week, and a younger me might have forced it. But this me understands that I need to respect the call for rest or pay a heftier price down the road. So I'm behind. Ah well... it's a good thing that there really are few quilting emergencies.
As much as I wanted to drop everything and just be mom while I was with him, it raised some moments of sheer panic to be so disconnented from my business. We are rarely fully disconnected as entrepreneurs. I still checked email daily and triaged it to E and M, my fab assistants, as needed. But that was about it.
I tried to write a couple of blog posts; I got half way thru one (that seems to be turning into a 5 part saga) before just closing the ipad and surrendering to the program of the day: building Lego kits with my son in front of favorite old movies (that we could both fall asleep in front of easily), and doing PT. We did a LOT of mall walking - don't knock it... it's climate controlled, flat, and has plenty of seating.
I really wanted to be disconnected from social media, but like everyone else, it's a struggle I rarely win, addicted as we are to the habits of doom-scrolling. It's impossible to avoid the doom of the current political landscape because part of social media is re-posting and amplifying a LOT of "can you freaking believe this?" or someone's clever remark on it all that wins the internet for an hour.
Without all the tragedies of the world and all the things happening that are beyond hard to freaking believe, social media is about monetizing your dissatisfaction. It exists to make you feel like you're missing out, like there's something wrong with you. I have a difficult relationship with it at the best of times, but when you're trying to deliberately take time off, the messages seem even more high stakes... not only am I not good enough, not doing enough, not young enough, and not thin enough, but now I'm also going to kill my business by being absent from it for more than a minute, by not hustling, by not doing a dozen reels a day showing how HARD I'm HUSTLING, despite having little relevant "content" to share.2
And so for both of us, we are now in a period of re-evaluation.
HIM: He has spent a decade with his physical world contracting as his heart disease progressed. So much of his life has been lived through the lens of "I can't do that." But now, his journey is to rewrite that into "What CAN'T I do?" It's a real shift of perspective that is going to take some work and attention. And I hope it's filled with all the adventures he can manage.
ME: Despite not getting a similar heart-health reset,3 I realized that I have the opportunity, at ANY time, to choose to live my life differently. A friend said to me just today, on one of our weekly support walk/talks,4 "I didn't survive cancer to kill myself working 60 hours a week." I haven't survived my own heart issues (and his) to kill myself with unnecessary hustle either.
So despite not really feeling like I had time off, I can see a sort of reset has been happening any way. It's been subtle, but I've found that my lasting shifts often are... they take awhile to think through, and new habits take a while to solidify. I'm working on my own version of "What CAN'T I do?", and "Why can't I do it LIKE THIS instead?" And despite the weight of the last few months, I'm so grateful that it gifted both of us a shift.
Can't wait to see what we get up to. Watch this space...
Another day at the office for the hospital team. Seriously, his surgeon does these 4 days a week, 2 or 3 a day.
Which begs the question: what actually is content? I run a pattern design business, so I'm not sure pix of my son in the ICU is content. It certainly isn't entertainment, no matter what reality TV would have you think.
We asked the surgeons - both his team and mine - the same fix will not work on me. Color me sad about that, but also relieved to not face such a surgery.
FOOTNOTE Seriously, if you want to keep in touch with far flung friends AND get your walking steps in, book walk/talk sessions with your pals.
Thank you for sharing. I can relate. I'm glad all is so much better.
Love you!