You know you're doing well...
...when even your complications are "normal" for someone with your condition & of your age. I went in to see Dr. Hausner earlier this afternoon. She's content with my progress, except for one thing: I have extra fluid in my pericardium (the sack of tissue around the heart). This often happens to younger people who undergo open-heart surgery. By cardiac standards, I'm practically a pediatric case, so Dr. Hausner expected this, & told me expressly not to worry. Dr. Siegenthaler (my surgeon) is the one with expertise in those issues. I'll see him in six days. Dr. Siegenthaler also would decide when it would be a good idea for me to head back to work.
Now, I didn't expect this, so I was taken aback. Here, I thought things were going pretty well. Apparently, taking on extra fluid in your pericardium is a reaction made by the pericardium to cushion against any further "insult", & I can't say that I blame it. Open-heart surgery is, after all, a massive attack on a vital organ, if a controlled one, but how is a body that was designed in the Stone Age supposed to react to something happening in the Space Age? Our bodies don't quite have the subtlety to tell the difference between a car crash-which often break sternums & send fragments spinning into the heart-& the skilled sawing & slicing of a surgeon.
Now, I didn't expect this, so I was taken aback. Here, I thought things were going pretty well. Apparently, taking on extra fluid in your pericardium is a reaction made by the pericardium to cushion against any further "insult", & I can't say that I blame it. Open-heart surgery is, after all, a massive attack on a vital organ, if a controlled one, but how is a body that was designed in the Stone Age supposed to react to something happening in the Space Age? Our bodies don't quite have the subtlety to tell the difference between a car crash-which often break sternums & send fragments spinning into the heart-& the skilled sawing & slicing of a surgeon.