D-DAY

November 12, 2007 8am, I checked in to pre-op at UMC for my open heart surgery, at 31 years old. Dr. Ralph Paone was the surgeon who was going to perform the mitral valve replacement. He had assured me, early on, that he would do the best to make the scar minimal.

Brendan and I checked in, and they started doing all the crazy stuff they do to you before surgery. I thought we would have some time to talk, or at least be scared, but man they were movin' and groovin' and next thing I know the Anesthesiologist, Dr. Greg Miller, who is AWESOME, came in and was ready to wheel me off! My parents, my sister, no one had shown up yet, because we thought we had plenty of time! Oh well, there's no waiting on this!

The last thing I remember is Dr. Miller cracking a joke, I laughed and then I woke up a few hours later in CICU, hooked up to a ventilator. Thank God they had warned me ahead of time, so I wasn't completely freaked when I woke up and couldn't talk or move.

My entire family was there. I was completely aware of what was going on, what was being said, but I had a gigantic tube down my throat, so I could only move my eyes. Brendan and I had come up with eye signals before my surgery - like 1 blink is yes, 2 is no and 3 is HELL NO! :-) I am SO glad we did this, because it came in handy! FInally, after about 8 hours, they pulled me off of the vent. I thought itching from the inside out was torture, no no no, being hooked up to a vent is torture...

All in all the surgery went well, and after 5 days in ICU, they sent me home. They had me up and walking around the next day, after my surgery, so going home wasn't bad. They had me pretty doped up, so the pain wasn't too terrible. Because I am so young, I bounced back pretty quickly. I was home for about 6, 6 1/2 weeks, and then I was pretty bored, so I decided to go back to work a couple of weeks early.