Today marks 12 weeks that I have been post-op! It seems surreal that the surgery was three months ago. It simultaneously feels like my surgery was years ago AND like I just blinked away the past three months! Crazy!
The reason I haven't posted in over a month is that I am doing pretty well; phenomenally well, actually! In true, crazy Emily-esque form, I took advantage of a seasonal, part-time job opportunity that arose when I was 6 weeks post-op. I have been working for the past month in SAN FRANCISCO at an incredible artisan chocolate company. What?!? Yes, it is crazy, but here's my reasoning and here's why it's working out so great: at 6 weeks post-op, my sternal precautions were lifted and I began being weaned off most of my medications. I was encouraged at this point to slowly start resuming normal activities (no disability car placard for me!). The best way for me to do this (I thought) was to keep myself occupied in a low-impact, low-stress routine. Enter the job opportunity: a seasonal (mid October through December) part-time customer service desk job, requiring only the physical demands of sitting at a desk and working on a computer. Great! "This" I thought, "sounds like the perfect soft re-entry to the real world--something that will give me routine without much physical demand." So one month ago I moved up to San Francisco and am now living with dear friends and living the working life!
This plan, while excellent in terms of rehab and adventure, has proven a little bit harder than I anticipated! The first week was pretty exhausting: adjusting to a new environment, a new routine, being "on" for 6 to 8 hours a day in a work environment, socializing with new people, learning a new job!--all things whose mental and physical energy requirements I took for granted. The past six weeks have also required a lot of mental heavy lifting: I am very aware of my mind being a bit dull, my memory less than average, my social interactions slightly awkward and my mood a bit low. I know that all of this is a normal part of post-operative recovery--recovery of the brain from cardiac surgery. In another couple of months my brain will be functioning again on all cylinders! Which is why the past month of part-time work has been wonderful mental rehab. To have a routine to structure my day, to have tasks and assignments to occupy and challenge my brain each day, to engage in socialization every day, these are the things that will help me to successfully get through this next stage of recovery.
The anthropologist in me regularly self-assesses the different stages of recovery and in doing so I have become very interested in the cognitive and social aspects of cardiac surgery recovery. My brain is slowly waking up from the residual effects of anesthesia, the bypass machine, loads of medications and the who-knows-what-effects of re-operative cardiac surgery. Clinical research shows that post-operative depression occurs in more than 50% of open-heart surgery patients; post-operative cognitive dysfunction after cardiac surgery is internationally recognized as a common occurrence; yet, there isn't a standard of practice on how to identify or address the cognitive implications of cardiac surgery. Why? I don't know. But I think it is something clinicians, as well as rehab specialists, can further research and address in post-operative treatment plans. Meanwhile, I'm moving forward, with each day a success!!
