You may have noticed it’s been quite awhile since my last post.\u00a0 I didn’t mean for it to be so long, but life seriously got in the way of writing.\u00a0 And I learned that what feels like bad luck, can be good luck.\u00a0 The best luck.<\/p>\n
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In December 2011, Darling Hubby needed knee surgery.\u00a0 Because of the system in Ontario, we decided he should have it in New York.\u00a0 They’d already mistreated him in Toronto, left him suffering for two months and we were fed up.\u00a0 Since we already had a wonderful Orthopedic Surgeon in NY thanks to my breaking my ankle, we decided to go to him and he operated right away – and Darling Hubby’s knee was good as new.<\/p>\n
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Darling Hubby was sent for a pre-op check and the doctor asked how long he’s had that whopper of a heart murmur.\u00a0DH and I looked at each other – heart murmur? What heart murmur?\u00a0 “Get it checked out by a cardiologist as soon as possible,” NY doctor said.<\/p>\n
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We went back to Toronto to DH’s GP, who’s been giving him physicals every single year for ages. He listened to DH’s chest and said, “oh don’t worry about it. Lots of people have heart murmurs. He can live forever with it.”<\/p>\n
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“NO,” said I.\u00a0 We want to go to a cardiologist.\u00a0 The doctor in NY said he needs a cardiologist.”\u00a0 GP didn’t think we did, but said, “Ok, fine.\u00a0 But it’s a year wait.”\u00a0 “What if people don’t have a year to wait,” I asked.\u00a0 “That’s Canada,” he said.<\/p>\n
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Luckily we had a friend with a good cardiologist – actually the best one in Toronto.\u00a0 Our friend already got Dr. H to agree to see us.\u00a0 All we needed was a referral.\u00a0 GP gave it to us and was slightly shocked that we could see this guy without the year’s wait. It did take several weeks but after several tests we saw Dr. H and he said, “Your aortic valve is extremely tight.\u00a0 You need open heart surgery.”<\/p>\n
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ACCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCCK!\u00a0 Open heart surgery.\u00a0 This isn’t funny. He didn’t know how GP could possibly miss this.\u00a0 The valve didn’t shut this much overnight.\u00a0 Amazingly, Darling Hubby wasn’t showing symptoms (so we thought) so he agreed to monitor it for awhile and give us a chance to absorb the news.\u00a0 “But,” he said, “surgery will happen sooner than later.”<\/p>\n
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I’ll leave out all the middle part, the tests, the visits, the advice not to go to New York last summer (but Darling Hubby insisted we go anyway) – in early November, Dr. H said, “this is it.\u00a0 He’s having surgery before the holidays.”\u00a0 Which took us to Incredible Surgeon, Dr. F.\u00a0\u00a0 Dr. H and Dr. F prefer to work with each other.\u00a0 They have a way they do aortic valves and make a great team.\u00a0 Dr. F did the surgery on December 21st, we spent the holidays in the hospital, not in New York, and I got the best gift I ever had in my life.\u00a0 They fixed Darling Hubby better than new.\u00a0 Dr. F is still talking about how that valve was shut and they don’t know he was walking around.\u00a0 Darling Hubby is a miracle.<\/p>\n
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Leaving out all the medical details again, I’ll just say it was a rough week.\u00a0 I stayed in a hotel downtown – Bless and thank Stavros from the RC, for taking such good care of me. I’ve never stayed in a hotel alone before in my whole life.\u00a0\u00a0My\u00a0wonderful children helped get us through this – without them, I don’t know how I could have\u00a0gotten through the days.\u00a0 My dear, dear\u00a0friends who are\u00a0my\u00a0family – oh how I love them and appreciate them.\u00a0 Everything they did for me during and especially after the hospital was a Godsend. How I thank them, how they own my heart.<\/p>\n
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And the best part of all – Darling Hubby.\u00a0 He recovered beautifully after some real complications.\u00a0 When we brought him home just a week later, leaving the hospital behind us, we knew we were beginning the rest of our life.\u00a0 What better luck is there than that?<\/p>\n
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Addendum:\u00a0 I won’t name\u00a0people to protect their privacy, but\u00a0I want to acknowledge and thank from my heart:<\/strong><\/p>\n The dearest friends who got Dr. H to see us. There are no adequate thanks.<\/p>\n Dr B (incredible orthopedic surgeon in NY) and Dr. O (internist in NY who found the problem)<\/p>\n Dr. H (the best cardiologist in the world who thank God is here in Toronto) and Dr. F (the best\u00a0open heart surgeon in the world, who also\u00a0thank God is here in Toronto) They saved the love of my life, my Darling Hubby – my heart.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I also want to say Phooey to Dr. R, the GP who didn’t recognize or take a heart mumur seriously, and bless Dr. T, MY GP who has taken Darling Hubby on as his patient now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I also thank the staff at TGH, especially the people in the Cardiovascular ICU.\u00a0 They watched over Darling Hubby like\u00a0loving hawks, giving him the most caring and\u00a0brilliant attention I could imagine.\u00a0 They were also so\u00a0kind to me and worked around my being deaf.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thank you to\u00a0Stavros and the staff at the Toronto RC Hotel.\u00a0 They made me feel at home, they furnished my room with devices\u00a0for deaf people,\u00a0and they\u00a0even took my room service orders by email.\u00a0 They also took me back and forth to the hospital every morning and every night.\u00a0 They made me feel safe and\u00a0cared for.\u00a0 I felt like I was with family.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And the person I want to thank the most, is my Darling Hubby. For being so strong and loving\u00a0us so much he defied\u00a0medical science and is now better than new.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And to the person who\u00a0is always\u00a0watching over us – Thank you – and please don’t ever\u00a0go away.\u00a0 We need you, we thank you, and we love you.\u00a0 DH never met you, but he knows how much I did and still do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" You may have noticed it’s been quite awhile since my last post.\u00a0 I didn’t mean for it to be so long, but life seriously got in the way of writing.\u00a0 And I learned that what feels like bad luck, can be good luck.\u00a0 The best luck. In December 2011, Darling Hubby needed knee surgery.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":446,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40\/revisions\/446"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lostmyhearing.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}