Heart surgery completed!

Posted on May 1, 2015

Check out my spiffy new flesh wound! You can see my previous surgery site above it. They couldn’t use the same incision site and this one is much longer. Pretty darn sexy if I have to say so myself. All went well, my pacemaker has a new pocket of pectoral muscle to snuggle up in, and I won’t need to be operated on in that area for another 7 or 8 years when my battery dies and a new pacemaker will need to be placed.  I’m sure by then they’ll have some new technology too.

As soon as I came to in recovery, I began removing my IV to make sure the nurses knew I was serious about not staying a second longer than I have to.  They understood me clearly and let me escape.  Danny and I began our drive from Santa Barbara to Nipomo, and a mile south of the Nipomo exit, we heard a scraping sound, an odd zigzag jiggle and stuff flying out from under the truck.

So, this happened! We lost a forward U joint on the prop shaft that runs from bow to stern, directly aft and forward of the wheels. When it fell it took out every last bit of wiring under the truck. This is one of the multitude of reasons why a sailboat is a much preferred choice of transportation!!! We could have simply raised the sails and kept going, and we wouldn’t have had wiring under the boat to deal with!

My handsome Darling McGuyver husband crawled under the truck and removed the shaft, gathered up the wire and put he truck in 4WD and coasted it in to a cute little mechanic shop in the middle of no where.

   

Dwight the mechanic decided he can fix the prop shaft and attempt to fix the wiring.  We will know more tomorrow. Three hours later, Hunter and Emma came and collected us from there and we drove to Mom and Dad’s beautiful home. They are so sweet and so accommodating. There are bodies and duffles everywhere. The creatures went swimming today, and Danny and I took a nap.

Only 1.5 more days till Danny and Jude fly out to Tanda Malaika in Panama. As soon as the truck is ready, I’ll jump into it with some creatures, Hunter will drive the car and we will make our way to Idaho to be with our other sweet parents.

I feel good.  No pain and full of energy.  I am grateful for modern medicine, an amazingly smart and handsome husband, and 11 beautiful children.  What more could a woman possibly want!