Then The Other Shoe Drops !

There she is, my musical friend Annie Hassett, 
who was available to drive me home from the 
hospital since my girlfriend was working that day...

The reason I bring it up is that the energy we shared
during that ride was so wonderful and uplifting...
even though I was gaunt and weak we sang together all
the way home....She is so cool!

It made me feel hope, and loved, and that life had new
meaning for me, it felt really good to sing with
abandon with someone who loved me! Very healing.... I
had played bass for her many times before, and those
gigs were always high energy and a lot of fun....Annie
also got all the local musicians together and they
threw a benefit for me at a small local club....I was
completely broke at the time, and it really
helped....My heart is filled with gratitude towards
Annie and all my friends that came to the Deja Brew
that day...all four bands that I'd played in one way
or another came and played outside...it was great!

I'll never forget it~

So I'm home for about two months....getting used to
the shock of such a sudden life change...from painting
houses, playing music, and being an all around people
person to being stuck at home, no driving, no lifting,
no choice! My blood was being drawn by a visiting
nurse for my Cumadin dosing, and I was so short of
breathe, and weak....Id lost over 45 lbs...!

As time went on...I could see that I was getting a
little bit better every day.... I was still taking
Percosets for pain every 4 hours, but the incision
going down my sternum was healing nicely....(I called
it the "surgeons necktie"~) I was starting to be
encouraged slowly that I was on my way to a new life
....all done with the medical world !

As the days went by I noticed pain in my lower
back...especially when I layed down flat on my back
and took any kind of breathe.....it really hurt! I
started to think I had a kidney stone, or a clot
again, and I went to the Dr...who sent me to get a
full torso CAT Scan.

It was a Saturday, and I went home, only to get a
message on the phone from the Emergency room Dr. I
returned his call to find out that I had no stone or
clot, but that my aorta below the repair I just had
enlarged too rapidly.... and that due to the fact that
the walls had stretched thin thy could burst.... so I
had to go back to see my Surgeon and he scheduled my
second surgery that following Thursday! I was
devastated...I couldnt believe it!

Needless to say I cried myself to sleep that
night....More surgery! This time he was going to go in
on my left side between my ribs...from my shoulder
blade all the way around to my chest....It was going
to be a more painful recovery since they were going
laterally through muscle and tissue.... and there was
a risk of paralysis from dealing with the descending
aorta that low!

I seemed to resolve myself that next day that I was
going to do what I had to do to save my life.....Gosh!
I was just starting to feel stronger and feel relief
from the pain....but now I felt that this time it was
"planned", and not an emergency like the first one...

My brother Nick and my girlfriend Belinda took me in,
and we expected the surgery to take 4 to 6 hours, and
it took 15 hours! My surgeon told me afterwards that
my aorta had "incorporated" itself into my lungs, and
that he first had to separate them before he could
replace the aorta itself with more plastic pipe! He
also told my brother that his instrumentation told him
that I wasnt getting a signal to my left leg, and that
he was afraid I was going to wake up paralyzed!

The nurses couldnt believe I was back again...I'd been
with them for 47 days just 2 months before, and here I
was again. Luckily, I could move my leg, and I only
stayed in the hospital for another 7 days...so 54 days
so far, and 29 hours of surgery!

But boy...did this one hurt! I couldnt lay on my left
side at all, and every cough and sneeze was like
getting stabbed.....I was quite depressed by
now....crying at anything that made me realize I was
done with life as I knew it....even watching music
being performed on TV brought me to tears....My band
had to wait for me again....no more Thursday night
practices for quite a while....

It was during these times that my friend Lisa, (a
regular paint customer turned friend of Belinda and I)
was always visiting me in the hospital + at home,
bringing me my favorite Reeses Peanut butter cups, and
always encouraging me and visiting me, as well as my
Brother and Belinda.... To those three people I am
Eternally Grateful for their tireless help,
compassion, expenses travelling, and patient
generosity.....Without their Love I don't think I
would've as strong during those times.

I appreciate anybody who is taking the time to read
this painful account of my past, but believe
me.....the road to recovery physically and spiritually
is quite uplifting....and it is my sincerest hope that
you'll follow this story till it "gets better"...and
even share your stories with me in the Comments box
below each post here at Smilin Daily!

If you desire to email me with more than the comment
box can hold...feel free to email me at:

stav7256@gmail.com

So I Woke Up In The ICU......

 

There I am....faux painting in a stair well in a house near Boston, 

using ladders, and daubing the wall with multiple layers of color

to make a beautiful finish....I'd been painting for 35.5 years, 

since Sept. 19, 1976 actually, starting in Skowhegan Maine.

At the time of my first attack, I was staining a house by hand
in vertical drops with a 32' ladder for a month...Good thing I wasn't
on the ladder when it happened, 'cause thats where I was headed !
I also have been playing bass & guitar since around '71, in   various             garage bands in and around Natick MA where I grew up. 

Music was and is my life, and most of my thought life in the hospital was 
imagining playing music in the current band I am in called Nexus, 
after the lyrics in a Jackson Browne tune...We play what I call 
"White Classic Rock"....I'd been in Blues bands, Zydeco Bands, 
you know, I date myself among the younger players who play 
Alternative and Punk, but I still love it, and cant imagine life without it!

Thats me in "Heaven", realizing one of my Dreams...to actually be playing with the Blues 
band I was in called the Wildcats, warming up for Johnny 
Winter! I had idolized Johnny's playing, and for 2.5 years I 
played his stuff quite a bit, loving every minute of it, never 
realizing that one  day I'd actually be on the same venue 
with him ! We played at  The Stadium Theater in Woonsocket
Rhode Island, next to the legendary Chans Restaurant, 
which also had many great Blues artists jam there. We 
played there as well....

So you see, Dreams Do Come True, 
sometimes by chance, sometimes by dint of hard labor and 
pushing with all your might and all you have to do is "Be There".  


Keep pursuing what you Love, and were born for, and good things can and do come !

So...

My surgeon told me that my operation took 14 hours, that my aorta had "split" in multiple 
45% angles, and that he had to close each and every one of them, taking my heart out, 
putting it back in, and looking for leaks, taking it out, and fixing it again...he replaced my Aortic
Arch with some kind of ribbed plastic pipe, and connected my Descending Aorta to it....
he also repaired my Mitral Valve Prolapse while they were in there,a major operation in and of itself!

Amazing what they can do these days in medicine, ain't it?  He saved my life. I was told 
that they even had to use the paddles on me at one point, and that altogether I was in the 
top 5% of people who live with what happened to me...

Apparently they put me in a coma, and I woke up 2 weeks or so later in the ICU with pipes
going down my throat, and my first memories was using a pen and paper to communicate
with the nurses and my Brother Nick, My Girlfriend Belinda, and My friend Lisa...who had 
traveled an hour each way from where we lived to keep me company and wait for me to
come around! The Love they showed me was uplifting and comforting, and I am eternally 
grateful for it....It's good to have people who care in ones' life, and the healing power of it
cannot be measured, but only appreciated with Thanks.

I also realized I had various complications that I woke up to, including strong hand tremors
from a lack of oxygen to the brain....I couldn't get a spoon of soup up to my mouth when 
they finally took the pipes out of my throat....this was one of the darkest moments of my life..
wondering if I'd ever be able to play bass and guitar again! My lifes' pleasure, and my painting
that I had taken so much pride in were suddenly gone....and I was looking at a totally 
unknown future....

I also was told that I had pneumonia, and was made to gag my lungs clear on a daily basis...
multiple times a day...and given an "Incentive Sirometer" I had to suck air through to make sure
my lungs were clearing to the bottom....That completely "sucked"....in more ways than one!
To add insult to injury, I was the told I had a super parasite in my blood from the surgical 
field called "Serratia", and that I had to stay in the hospital for 30 more days to receive
transfusions twice a day of an antibiotic called Vancomycin (sp) to make sure it was dead!
Altogether I was in the hospital for 47 days that first time, and since I hadn't moved around 
too much, or eaten very much, I'd lost over 45 lbs! Then, they discovered Thrombosis (clots) in
both my calves, and they put me on a course of Heparin, and told me I would have to get 
the INR of my blood measured by a visiting nurse at my home and that I had to take Cumadin 
for 3 to 6 weeks.....

To say the least I was depressed, even though I didn't complain about my stay in the hospital. 
I was told that I was a good patient, and that made me feel better...but my life was so completely
interrupted that considering a life as an invalid was so awful and scary to me....I cried at the drop 
of a hat.....patients came and went in my room in the bed next to me, and I was in for the long haul.

I learned to walk with a walker up and down the hall...and finally without a walker, and then 
up and down a flight of stairs.....nevermind a ladder! They told me to figure on a year or more
of reconditioning at home....

Gosh! Would I ever play music again???? Would I ever be able to paint, or even earn a living at all?
Would I have to get a lawyer and fight the system to get SSI for the rest of my life?
Would I ever be able to do anything without totally losing my breathe? Would the pain subside to 
the point that I didn't need those dizzying pain pills? Would I ever have any fun with friends like 
I used to? So many questions.....So much time to think of 'em....

The story gets even worse before it gets better.....but this blog is about facing lifes challenges, 
seeing things that I never saw before....and realizing the amazing Power of Love through it all...
Please stay with me , and share your comments, lets get through this together ! 


Love, Smilinsteve 


P.S. I gotta live up to my "nickname", don't I?