Thank you, medical equipment engineers and inovators.
Thank you, creators and perfectors of the Da Vinci system and minimally invasive heart surgery.
Thank you, Mayo Clinics staff and especially the cardiovascular surgery department for being so incredibly good at what you do.
Thank you, medicine professionals for all those years of studying.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
This summer has been a tough one for me. At the beginning of summer my father scheduled his heart valve surgery. It was stressful for my family to have him first going in for test to find out what was wrong and then to find out if he would be a candidate for the minimally invasive heart surgery or if he would need open heart and then to wait for the surgery day to come. But we are very fortunate both that he (due to the fact that in general he is incredible healthy) was approved for the less invasive surgery option and then that they were able to do a repair rather than a replacement. We are also lucky that the hospital my parents went to (based on the close proximity and that my grandfather had his triple bipass there 26 years ago) offered the minimally invasive heart surgery option as apparently it is not available everywhere.
Being faced with my parents' mortality was a reality check for me. My parents are really healthy and have been aging so well that it hadn't really occured to me lately to think about how short life can be. That coupled with the fact that in a short few short hours I will be a "thirty-something" (thirty didn't bother me but now I am really in my thirties!) has been forcing me to take a close look at my priorities and whether I am living my life how I want to. Whether I am happy with what I do on a daily basis.
I took the time off work to go be at the hospital during the surgery. It was so bizarre in the days leading up to the surgery; it was like a cloud was there but everyone was trying to show a sunny face. At the hospital we tried to keep the positive energy there with light banter and guessing how long it would be before my dad would be making a wisecrack post-op (as soon as he could talk); I will never forget how excited and relieved my mom was when the surgeon came out to tell her how smooth the surgery went and that they were able to do the repair instead of a replacement (thus he won't need blood thinner meds). I will also never forget how vulnerable my dad looked when we first went in to see him and how my heart sank when my mom told me today that she just learned that he had stopped breathing a couple times right before we came in to see him.
I am lucky. My father's surgery was a success and he will (hopefully) be back to himself in a short amount of time. My stress can now level-set and I can stop freaking out about mortality. I can start focusing on how to positively impact the answers to the 'am I happy with what I do everyday' and finding ways to make sure I spend enough time with my family.
Now that I have that off my chest- on to regular programming here!
{images: cotton idea studio, from personal album}
Tara
