His Heart Beats On
It has been 19 days since my husband, Shaun, had his open-heart surgery, and there were several moments in the hospital that felt surreal. One was seeing him intubated and still completely unconscious. Another was watching as they weaned him from the breathing tube and then removed it. His first words to me were, “I love you,” though they came out as more of a croak and a whisper.
Then there was the first chest X-ray, when we learned that part of his right lung had not inflated, which led to him needing a chest tube for a few days.
The biggest shock came at three in the morning after his surgery, while he was in the ICU. I heard a nurse ask if he was feeling okay. Shaun said he was, and then the nurse told him that his EKG looked like he was having a heart attack. A second person came in and said the same thing, and Shaun told them, “My wife needs to hear this.”
I responded, “I heard it all.”
In the end, he had inflammation around the sac of his heart; he did not have a heart attack. Still, that was not news I wanted to send to our family in a text message—especially at 3:00 a.m. I waited to tell family and friends by phone or in person, when I could.
Over ten years ago, when my dad was moved to the ICU, I also waited to tell my family.
Shaun is a trooper. If you did not see the scar, you would never know that 19 days ago he had major heart surgery. Each day, he seems a little more like himself. And yet, that scar is a reminder of everything his body has been through—and everything that was experienced alongside him.
Recovery is strange that way. The crisis ends, you come home, and life begins to look a little more normal again. But it isn’t quite the same normal you left.
For those days in the hospital, I watched monitors, listened for changes, learned what numbers mattered, and waited for the next update. Now, instead of watching a monitor, I watch Shaun. I notice how far he walks, how he feels, what he can do today that he couldn’t do a few days ago.
Nineteen days isn’t very long. But when I think back to seeing him unconscious with a breathing tube, hearing the words “heart attack” at three in the morning, and watching him deal with a chest tube because his lung had not fully inflated, it somehow feels like both yesterday and a lifetime ago.
And through all of it, his heart beats on.
When has life returned to normal, only for you to realize that “normal” feels a little different now?