Tenth
Week Post Transplant
April 10th – 16th
This Sunday Dad and I made it up the hill to the stop sign! I held the sign pole and thought of Sir Edmund Hillary holding a flag atop Mt. Everest . It was a Kodak moment, but we didn’t have a camera with us.
Monday Dad left and I took my last shot of Lovanox. The coumadin should be working by now in its place. Monday night for over three hours my heart was skipping beats badly enough that I had to lie down. It is so discomforting when this happens. But the rest of the week the skipping happened less often.
Tuesday I started raking our yard. I have a huge yard and it hasn’t been given much loving attention since I got sick. The leaves have choked most of the grass in the back. I had enough strength to rake one small pile. I figured if I rake one pile a day, by the end of the summer the yard should be clear. Wednesday I raked another small pile. The next day I was suddenly much stronger and could rake two piles. The exercise feels really good!
This week I read something about facing truth. I have to face the truth of what happened to me. Bravely doing so I find my anxiety is less. I’m also working with the attitude of allowing life to unfold before me, rather than trying to push things I may not be ready for….like driving by myself.
I also began writing this week, which was good for me psychologically because it’s something I love to do and gives me a creative outflow.
This week I also realized a dream riddle that I got the night before my heart failure occurred in October of 2002. I woke up that morning with a message “It’s time to start thinking about changing your horse.” I wasn’t convinced that “horse” was the right word and considered it might mean “house.” On our drive to New Jersey that day, Bob and I tried to figure out what the dream was telling me. Was it time to start thinking about selling my house? Was the real estate market or my personal finances going to take a turn? Or, did “horse” mean vehicle like a “car”? Was my car going to have problems and I should sell it soon? The message was so strong that over the past two years I’ve wondered about it time and again. This week, I realized the five-letter “h” word was not house or horse. It was heart. The inner master was preparing me through my dreams, from the very beginning, for eventually having to change my heart.
The week ended with my girlfriend Adrianna coming over Saturday, cooking dinner for me and the girls (and Bob too) and spending the night. Sunday morning we went to a park and played, then went out for ice cream cones. It was a wonderful morning. After Adrianna left, I hung out the rest of the day with Kellan and Aria.
Often I stop what I’m doing, like even right now while I’m writing this, and remember how wonderful it is to be healthy again, how glad I am not to be living in the hospital anymore, and how grateful I am to have this second chance at life. It is wonderful to be alive!