Home - Week 7 - One final game

From my first day of recovery I have been terrified of the possibility that my chest bone (sternum) doesn't heal properly. The healthcare team has warned me with every movement that I must be careful not to disturb the healing of my chest. The consequences are painful and repair is unlikely. I can't lift anything greater than 5 pounds. I have to be careful when twisting in bed. When I sneeze, laugh, cough or yawn I need to cross my arms in front of my chest. At the beginning the amount of pain I was felt any time I moved my chest was reinforcement enough. After a while though, the pain wasn't so bad, but by then I was fully brainwashed to protect my chest at all costs.

The healing schedule for my chest, as described by the physiotherapist, is the following: after 4 weeks the bone begins to mend, after 6 weeks the bone can withstand movement, and after 8 weeks the bone is healed. When I met with the surgeon 2 weeks ago he said the x-rays showed the bone was healing and everything was good. I was still pretty worried because I was still having pains in my chest and occasionally I'd get a popping of bones around the sternum. It was nothing too significant, more like a knuckle crack. This week I decided to call the nursing coordinator (NC) at the OHI to confirm that I could start driving and to ask some questions about my chest.

Once I was on line with the NC I gave her my name and surgery date. She said, "oh ya you're a young fella aren't ya".

I acknowledged that I was young from a certain perspective and then proceeded to ask about the driving. She answered, "how do you feel and how are your walks going?"

To which I replied "I feel good, I still have some numbness and soreness in the chest. I'm doing 2-40min walks a day".

She then says "OK you can drive".

"That simple?", I say.

She says, "yup".

Feeling good about the driving I then started telling her about my worries that my chest may not be healing correctly. She replied "when you look down at your chest and breath in, does one side come up before the other?"

"That simple?", I say.

She says, "yup".

I say good bye and hang up. Of course the first thing I do is look down at my chest and breath in. Both sides came up at the same time. All is well and I am ready to drive.

Today (Friday) is my mom's last day here. After suffering through another night of insomnia, I woke late and went in to pick up my truck. It was a little funny to start driving, but not as foreign as I thought it would be. When I returned home, my and I had lunch and then decided to play a game of crib. One final game. As it turned out with the time line my mom set for herself in combination with a couple of interruptions we weren't able to finish the game. As much as I need to move on to the next step of recovery, I'm going to miss having my mom and dad around. Very few of us get to spend 8 solid weeks with our parents anymore. We're all too busy. I'm glad the game was left unfinished. Too me we didn't say "good bye", we just said "until next time".