Time Marches On

It's been a while since I my last post.  Sometime last month.  Almost a month ago I guess.

And it's getting close to three months now since I was placed on the transplant list.   Sometimes it still seems surreal that I could get the call this afternoon, any afternoon really.  Or morning, Noon, or night.

I think about it every day....kind of hard not to.

Go to the hospital, take a few sleepy drugs, and wake up with another human heart beating inside my chest.  Easy Peasy.

I know it happens, successfully, all the time.  But when I think about little ol me being the one going through it all, when I stop to think of the enormity of it all...

Well...

 Queue the Twilight Zone music.

I haven't counted the EXACT days for a while..its over 80 though I think.  Not that it really matters. Numbers can mess with your head if you let em, and I try really, really hard not to do that to myself.

I hate the talk of average wait times, and odds of finding a donor, and all that jazz.  It is what it is. I've gotten very good at dealing with things as they are.

I've heard that 'against the odds' stuff my whole life.  Lot's of folks with MD behind their names told me and my parents I wouldn't make it to 1 or 3 or 5...but here I am.. almost 45 frickin years old, thank you very much.

Kids like me, and now tens of thousands of grown ups like me, who battle on, and on, and on, in the face of congenital heart disease, with no little or no guarantee of future success, are called SURVIVORS ...for a reason.  There is very little, if any, quit in any of us.

But..I am aware, painfully aware at times, that time...moves...sooooo...slowly.  Again, not all the time, and not every day...but good gravy, there are times when I swear the second hand stops moving.

In some ways I still feel like I'm 9 years old in the back of Dad's mile long Chrysler Newport on the way to Grandma's in Ohio,  and over and over again, uttering those three little magic words, even it it was under my breath..Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Oh, for the love of Pete, are we there yet?

(Thank the Lord dad let us listen to country music on the 8-track.  #saidnokidever)

But time marches on....it always does.

And to be honest, more often than not, I catch myself thinking, has it really been that long?  3 months? For Real?

Football season is almost over.  Crops are almost completely harvested.  Snow is on the way. Thanksgiving is just around the corner.  Then Christmas.  Then a whole new year.

It's just this waiting is so dang boring.  Oh my gosh.  BOOOOOORING!

Mainly cause I can't do a whole lot....except sleep.

I'm GREAT at that.  Holy mackerel, I have mastered that.

10, 12, 14 hours a day. No problem.  But it's not very fun...at all.

And the fact that I sleep that much leaves little time do much else, because when I am not sleeping, I'm still not 100%.  Not even close.

I'm not sick enough to be hospitalized yet, but I'm not healthy enough to have much of a life.  It stinks at times.  Stinks real bad.

Good thing is I don't have any real pain yet...I just get extremely tired after doing very little.  It's frustrating.  And it's boring.  Did I say it was boring?

Not exactly ideal conditions for prodigious blogging...hence the month between blog posts.  Not exactly ideal conditions for much of anything...except waiting for a new heart.

Queue Buck Owens (and the whole Hee Haw gang) drifting over those lime jello colored leatherette seats...

Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?  Are we there yet?

Oh wait, I said that already.  That STILL didn't make the phone ring...what a jip.

So I used to track the days.  But once a few days became a few weeks, and now almost a few months well, I gotta be honest.  The thrill is gone.  The novelty has worn off.  I'm ready and rarin ta go.  A little personal LOL here...If my dad were still here, I could hear him say, "son, it's time to shit or get off the pot."  I agree Dad..I agree.

But whatever the wait time ends up being, I'm guess I'm OK with it. I kinda have to be.  I'm not going to give up.  I've come to far.  Too many people pulling for me.  I'm surrounded by world class doctors and world class love, I still feel like the luckiest guy in the whole wide universe sometimes.  Heck, most of the time.

And I still think I'll beat the averages. and I'd be more than happy to spend the holidays the in hospital if it means starting the new year with a new ticker.

Any in case your wondering,  I do still visit the doctor every few weeks and everything, besides my heart, seems to be just fine.  In fact they say the all this sleep and fatigue is very common and perfectly acceptable.  My body has figured out a way to cope as best it can with the circumstance it finds itself in.

So for my overall good health, I am very grateful.  It bodes well for the future and for my recovery post transplant.

My appetite is hit and miss, Fortunately most of the time I am indeed hungry.  But I feel full so fast. I have to force myself to eat a few extra bites it seems. But I am maintaining my weight.

Again, for that I am very grateful.

Wrapping up here, I was just thinking. remember when we were kids and we used to play freeze tag.  We'd run around like goofballs till the 'it' kid touched us.  And we had to stay there, in that exact spot, almost frozen in time, until some came along and 'unfroze' us.

That's a pretty darn good analogy to how I feel.  I'm just kinda stuck, like in a childhood game of tag..and like in the backseat of that old Chrysler. Waiting.  Waiting.  Waiting for a new heart...and a new start.

Have a great day everyone!