I just now realized that I did not post anything about my open heart surgery, so I thought I would take a few moments and tell you about it.

I am not sure if I told the story in past blog posts or not, but just in case somebody doesn’t want to go back in my blog and see the full story, I’ll just go ahead and tell you all in one post.

Every year my insurance company wants me to see a doctor who is not my primary doctor so that they can give me an exam. Not a physical, just an exam. Well in January 2025 I went to this doctor and they did my vitals to check my blood pressure and my pulse and my temperature and all that other good stuff. They saw that my pulse was slow, so they pushed the button on the blood pressure machine again so it would start over. The same results came. She had me relax for about 5 minutes and then she did it again and the results were the same. So when the doctor came into the room, she was told about what happened and so she went to try to check my blood pressure again and then she did it again by just holding her fingers on my wrist and looking at her watch. Same result.

So she did the rest of her exam and she went through my medicines and made sure I wasn’t depressed and you know, all that good stuff. Then she told me that I need to go see a cardiologist and she made the referral and they called me and made the appointment and I spent most of the next 6 months going back and forth doing tests on my heart. I had to have a heart monitor for about a week and then they changed my heart medicine and they gave me a new heart medicine and I had to come in and have a CT scan, a calcium score an MRI, ultrasounds, another heart monitor for 24 hours and stress tests. They did a stress test on the treadmill and then they had me come back another time for another stress test but in a CT scan machine and they injected chemicals into my veins during the test.

So it had been a couple or a few months since I had heard from them. It was like complete silence until I had to have my colonoscopy and I also have to have bladder surgery and so those two doctors needed me to get a clearance from the cardiologist before they would be able to do anything. So we called the cardiologist and told them I needed clearance for a colonoscopy and bladder surgery and they said come on in, and so we came in and they said you are absolutely not cleared for any kind of procedure at all whatsoever. The doctor told me that I have to have an angiogram and that would be on October 31st, 2025. The receptionist who was making the appointment for the angiogram mentioned that I might have to have open heart surgery and I was like excuse me? Open heart surgery? She said yeah. And I was like oh my God this is that serious?

So I had my angiogram and they told me I need triple bypass surgery.  He told me that one of my arteries to my heart is completely blocked and then the second one is almost completely blocked and then the third one is getting blocked. That is shocking because I felt just fine. I occasionally had some tightness in my chest, but I never felt like I was about to have a heart attack, but I’m sure it could have happened at any moment.

I saw the surgeon in December and he told me that there is a risk that I will have a heart attack or a stroke and or die during surgery or, I could have a heart attack or a stroke and or die after surgery. He asked me if I still wanted to have this surgery, and I said yes.

I mean look, what are my choices here? If my arteries that pump blood from my body to my heart and vice versa or whatever the deal is with this, if my arteries are so clogged that I need a triple bypass, what are the chances that I will have very much longer to live if I don’t have the surgery? I could probably have died at any time of a heart attack or stroke because of this if I don’t have the surgery, so either way I have a risk of dying. At least I know that the surgery is so common because they do it all the time. This surgeon told us that he does this surgery two or three times a week for decades.

So I had my surgery on January 22nd, 2026 and I was in the hospital for about a week. They wouldn’t let me lay in bed during the time that I was in the hospital because apparently if you are lying in bed after surgery, you will end up getting sick with pneumonia and you could end up in the hospital for weeks or months not getting any better. I had two tubes coming out of my chest below my ribs from the surgery, because your body has all these fluids from the surgery and they have to drain them and if you’re laying in bed then those fluids are not going to drain properly and they’re going to stay in your body and you’ll get an infection and you’ll just be sick, so they had me get up every morning and I had to sit on a chair and then they would have me walking around and you know, not getting sick in bed.

And as you can see from the image above, they gave me a teddy bear. The bear is actually called a cough buddy and it’s not just a cute little teddy bear that I get to have as a souvenir from my heart surgery, it has a purpose. I had to hold the teddy bear close to my chest every time I had to get in and out of bed and every time I had to sit in a chair or get up out of the chair. When you have open heart surgery they have to open up your chest which means that they cut your sternum open and it’s going to be very painful and you need something to hold against your chest.

It also has a purpose for coughing and sneezing. If you are not holding that bear to your chest when you cough or sneeze, you’re going to have a bad day. It’s not going to be fun. Let me just tell you right now that I have been sneezing several times a day and it’s been a month since I’ve had my surgery and I am telling you that that is the most pain you will have in your life from sneezing. You want to try to avoid sneezing by squeezing your nose or putting your finger under your nose or doing whatever it is that you can do to stop that sneeze from happening, but sometimes it sneaks up on you and you cannot stop it and it happens and it hurts like hell. That bear doesn’t stop the pain, but it sure does help so it’s not as painful. And believe me, I have blown my nose from here to the Moon and it does not stop the sneezes from happening. It’s going to happen. Oh and it also hurts like hell to blow your nose.

So yeah, it’s been a month since I had my surgery and I am still healing. My sternum is wired shut, but it feels like it’s not closed or healed completely because I can feel it moving, kind of. Or maybe that’s just how it feels, I don’t know. I also popped my stitches after a couple of weeks. The surgeon warned me to keep my arms close together like a T-Rex. If you stretch your arms out and you’ve got an incision down the middle of your chest, you’re going to pop your stitches and it’s not going to be good. I did the T-Rex as much as I could possibly do, but there was one time that I accidentally forgot and I stretched my arms and it popped my stitches. He gave me a bottle of iodine and told me to air dry my chest after I took a shower and then put some iodine on it and then put bandages on it. My primary doctor gave me some packs of this yellow bandage called Medical Xeroform Petrolatum Dressing and told me to cut pieces to put on the incision and then cover it up with bandages and it will heal, and it is working. The surgeon saw it a couple of days ago and told me that it looks like it’s healing and just to keep using that and keep it from drying out and it will heal. I saw it yesterday when we went to my primary doctor and she told me that it looks like it’s closing up, so hopefully it will heal properly and the scar won’t be too bad.

So, I’m sorry for taking up so much of your time reading my novel LOL. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Take care of yourself. Eat healthy and exercise and don’t let this happen to you. This is not a fun experience.