Post transplant and some wonderful news

ICU Recovery:
I woke up in the ICU with my wrists tied to the bed, intubated, oxygen masked and nearly every part of my body had something going into it or draining out. At that point I felt no pain. I remember seeing my parents and Christian but couldn't speak to them.

I know that it is typical for people to act out of character when heavily sedated and many years ago when I was hospitalized I apparently tried to fight the nurses and said some pretty inappropriate stuff. I didn't do that this time. At some point (despite being tied?) I do remember thrashing and attempting to pull out my trach. I was also told by one of the NP's who stopped in to see me that I was wide awake fully intubated and did NOT look happy. Since I couldn't speak I grabbed her phone from her hands, started typing and handed it back. My message to her read: Get this fucking tube out of my throat. I typically don't throw f-bombs around so this message was a little unexpected coming from me! They did pull my trach tube soon after : )

Pratt 8 Recovery:
The ICU wasn't terrible but I did have plenty of crazy awful painful moments and a few minor bumps along the way which I won't get into. Overall I did very well and was back up on Pratt 8 within a few days. It was so nice to see my regular nurses and be in a more comfortable setting. I did, however, get some unfortunate news. The few days I was off the floor I had the nurses watch over Ted. I'm not sure if he just couldn't handle the stress or more likely that they over indulged him with beta pellets...but Ted didn't make it.

I grieved briefly and had to move on to make sure I made it! The nurses may not be the best pet sitters but I know they take excellent care of me. To sum up the past few days the main focus/activities were:

- Pulling my oxygen so I was fully breathing through my nose and mouth on my own.
- Pulling my catheter/swan line.
- Pulling chest tubes. If it isn't enough to have your sternum cracked, new heart and a foot long incision down your chest they also jam three tubes into your chest that drain externally. These tubes aren't small and I had little room for them. As a result they inhibit your breathing, push up against your ribs and cause tons of pain. It took well over a week but they finally drained and were pulled.
- Apparently it is common for the right side of the implanted heart to struggle due to it being on ice so I was temporarily on IV heart meds to aid the right side.
- My first new heart echo proved that my right side had fully recovered and they stopped the IV heart meds. The echo also measured my new ejection fraction which measures the amount of blood volume that your heart is pumping out. My new heart measured at 60% (55-70% is considered normal and under 40% is considered heart failure). My ejection fraction prior to transplant was 5%. It was pretty incredible to watch the echo show a functioning, beating heart inside of me that once sat inside of another body.
- My first biopsy of the heart to see how well it functioned and the rejection rate came back at a 1A. The scale goes from zero to 1A, 1B, etc. so all is good.

I was discharged from the hospital on Monday and it was a very emotional day. The side effects of the heavy doses of prednisone are coming through (which I'll get into on a later post) so my emotions and mood have been a little erratic.

The last of my hospital belongings sat with me outside of Tufts as I waited for Christian to swing around with the car. One of the CCT's (who kindly taught me even more knitting tips) was with me and just as Christian pulled up she turns and says "Harry got a heart today. He went down to the OR at 5am this morning."

I bawled the whole ride home.