Gremlins

Mom is home. The surgery to implant the pacemaker was, as the doctor later told me, challenging. She is in a study of potentially 20 people at her university hospital. She is No. 4. She has committed to three years of extensive testing of the device, which is much smaller than devices currently being used. She has a hand-held device at her house that will read the data from the pacemaker and send it directly to her doctor.

The surgery itself took almost 4.5 hours instead of the expected 2 to 3 hours. I was beginning to get very nervous. Apparently, they inserted the first two leads very easily into the top area of her heart but when they tried to plant the big lead into a vein in the lower area, the vein started to tear. There was a blockage! What a surprise. When the lead pushed on the blockage, it started to tear the vein. They broke through it and the blockage is now holding the lead in place. The only reason all went well was the experience and the good hands of the amazing heart surgeon. Yes, the classical pianist. Love those fingers.

She was doing so well that she was released yesterday afternoon. I got her home, settled, fed and will return this morning. The really bad news is that she cannot drive for two weeks. That is going to be the hardest thing about this whole event. Hard to keep a good woman down!

I am beyond exhausted. Since the dinner party last Sunday, I have not slept well. Finally last night, I passed out. It is going to take days to get my energy back to normal. Today, I need to shower, see mom, take her to Safeway and lunch, meet with my colonscopy doctor, buy groceries and return a bunch of phone calls.

The day has not started well. I tried printing my list of medications and the printer is broken. Then, I noticed that Michael did not close the freezer drawer again last night and I had to throw everything away. I hope nothing else goes wrong today though I just wrote a note to myself to backup my computer!