Just picked up a guitar for the first time since surgery. It took all of my energy to play two songs. I played "Blackbird" - just as all beginners do at the music store. I figure I'm a beginner now too. Forget singing. It still hurts just to breathe. I sort of mumbled the melodies, kinda like a very old blues singer. I guess a lot of them sound that way because they are old and tired and their lung capacity is not what it was. I had a gig booked for this coming New Year's Eve at the Angel Inn in Niagara-On-The-Lake but I gave it up. The Platypus Rex band led by my friend Hank, will be doing it instead. Unfortunately, I am the regular bass player in that band too. They are working in a substitute to play bass for the gigs in my absence. However, they have still left New Year's eve open as an option for me to play with them. I would really like to do it. But at this stage of the game it's hard to commit. I think I'll be ok by then, but who knows if I can take a whole night in a smokey bar. Probably not the best idea. Well I'll play it by ear, and if worse comes to worst, I can always go as a patron, and sit in for a few songs.
My uncle Jack Young who was a singer (bass player & band leader) all his life recently had some emergency aortic aneurisms. Luckily he survived. Now in his late 70's he says he can't sing anymore because the breathing tube inserted during surgery scratched his vocal chords. I'm not sure if that's the only reason. It is my hunch that he was such a good singer in his time that perhaps in his own mind, the way he sings today just does not meet up to the standard of perfection that he set for himself when he worked with all of the top Toronto and some legendary musicians. A while ago Jack offered to give me all of musical arrangements that he used as a band leader for up to a 25 piece orchestra. Complete with the cardboard music stands with "The Jack Young Orchestra" on them. I've put off picking them up because neither of us was allowed to lift heavy objects and these things weigh a ton. We agreed to do it in the new year when I am strong as bull. These arrangements will be a treasure. And who knows maybe one day we'll throw together a big swing band just for the fun of it.
I can't say that my throat is sore or anything or that my vocal chords are damaged. It's just that my ribs are too sore to take the deep breaths required to sing out. I know that this is just a short term problem and that with time all will be fine. However, I will keep using my "Incentive Spirometer" the breathing exerciser they gave me at the hospital. It is sort of like a backwards hooka. A pipe-like apparatus with which you suck in on the tube and a little ball rises in another tube. You have to hold the little ball at the top of the tube for two seconds. The resistance is adjustable. Presently, and before the operation, I could use the number 8 setting. After surgery I could barely hold the ball up at the number 2 setting. I had to practice on this thing right from day one every hour on the hour to build back my lung capacity and to avoid fluid accumulation in the lungs which could cause pneumonia. Anyway I'm back to where I was before I went in, but it really is a good breathing exercise and as I singer I would like to get up to number 10 on that dial.
I am very proud of myself today for doing a mile on the treadmill this morning and then another half hour walk down the street this afternoon. It was a mild day for November, about 50 degrees, but mostly grey and cloudy. It really felt good though to be outside in the great outdoors breathing fresh cool air. I bundled up and even though my incision is healing quite well with almost all the scabbing gone, it was still very uncomfortable wearing all that clothing. I feel best in a very soft baggy t-shirt or with my shirt open and nothing touching my chest. There is really no relief and I'm sure anyone that has every had heart surgery would have recognized me walking down the street holding or pulling the front of my clothing away from my chest. It has become a constant habit for me, pulling at the front of my t-shirt or what ever I'm wearing. And I hope that when the discomfort finally subsides, I won't continue to pull just out of habit. Who knows. We are strange creatures of habbit.
Dory looked at me tonight as said, "just think two weeks ago tonight (the night before surgery) were sitting here scared out of our minds. And now..." Time really flies. I don't think the complexity and the severity of what happened to me has hit me yet. I am most definitely feeling it physically, but emotionally and spiritually, I'm not so sure. I don't mean I'm going to wake up in the middle of the night and suddenly know the meaning of life. But, I should feel something. This is supposed to put my whole life in to perspective. I guess in some ways it has. I'm just not sure I'm ready to deal with it yet. Maybe not ready to actually spill the beans, so to speak. On paper. Or on disk. I think it will come. I would like to continue writing. And as I get better and better, there will be less to write about on the topic of open heart surgery, unless I dive into the emotional and spiritual side. When/if I do, I will think about what I say first before publishing it, as opposed to the off the cuff spouting off at the keyboard that I have been doing so far.
I have thought about this though. Not being a religious person, I have been caught off guard when so many people have said to me recently, " You'll be in my prayers..I'll be praying for you...." Since I don't pray, I have a hard time relating to that sentiment other than I really appreciate the good intentions and concern. I suppose, that if I were a believer, that this would be an easy thing to say to some one who was going through an life ordeal. I'm sure people actually mean it and do include other folk in their prayers. This is a good thing. Positive energy. And believe me, despite my agnosticity,(a word I might have just made up?) it made me feel real good to hear these little blessings. I consciously took that positive energy with me, figuratively speaking, into that operating room. It's even funny in way that in my responses to other heart patients lately I've found my self pounding on that backspace key as I erase my own words, "You'll be in my prayers" as I try to think of another way of expressing this kind wish of hope to others.
Speaking of hope. I hope I said that without offending anyone. So on a lighter note, Herb and Rod spent yesterday morning cutting up a huge tree branch that had broken off our willow tree and this is a dumb poem I wrote for them:
things that rhyme with oink
you are a merry woodsman,
who gleefully cuts wood
for friends who are absent
and would otherwise help if they could.
its hard to find words
to express our gratitude
to one who gives and gives
and rarely, I said, rarely is rude.
never mind things that we could do
or things that we could say
we'll soon be happy and fresh
and we'll all play and play and play.
i tried and tried
i wracked my little brain
and despite my inability to do so right now
all I can think of is
boink.
From: [email protected]
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 1998 10:57:49 EST
Steve, Thanks for responding. Glad you are feeling up to working on this
page. I noticed the grass is still green in the picture from your window. I
thought you would have had snow by now. I live in the southern USA, state of
Georgia. Yesterday, I had to mow my grass (lawn) (smile). Keep hoping it
will frost and stop this stuff from growing this year!
I am a little concerned about Page 12- "Steve's Fixed!" Down here getting
fixed has to do with neutering! I just hope they didn't send you by the vet's
on the way home from the hospital! ("Oink", smile, again). I can't imagine a
neutered "picker". Keep smilin'.
Have a lot of "honey-do" jobs. Check you later. Gene
From: [email protected]
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 1998 23:07:27 -0500
Subject: Where's that slop???
Dear Oink....um...I mean Steve,
Sure adds a new meaning to "Hogtown" doesn't it?
Here's a little poem I made up. Silly, stupid...childish even...but in my
own spaced-out brain...I THOUGHT IT WAS FUNNY!!!!!!!
This little piggy went to market
This little piggy wanted a vacation and went to Rome
This little piggy had nothing to do that day
so he auctioned off a heart valve so that Steve Goldberger could come home
OK! OK!...so I'll never get in Oprah's book club for my brilliant poems or
win the Pulitzer...but I was sure findin' myself awfully funny when I put
this little ditty together!
Um.....watch the pop burps. Coke Classic is the worst so definitely stay
away from that!
Glad you're treadmillin' it!
Lots of love, Tessa XOXOXO
From: Peter dellaFemina <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Home Sweet Home - Bum Ticker Update
Steve,
Just got through your most recent web pages. What a trip! I mean, I
can't emphasize enough how wonderful it was to read all those details
about OHS that I neither wrote about nor remembered a year and a half
u made me laugh out (oink) loud !!
Loved those photos, too. Your pipe was a little different than mine,
but I'm sure it was a smooth smoke (he he he). Anyway, I'm really glad
you're doing well. Anxious to hear about your walks, treadmill or
otherwise.
Later.
==
Peter dellaFemina
The Negative Guy
(probably away from my Mac)
From: "Karyn McCallum" <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Choo-Choos and Biscotti- Bum Ticker Update 15
Date: Sun, 22 Nov 1998 17:48:11 PST
Hi there Steve, I've just opened my seldom used alternate e-mail
address, only to find all at once all the news about your "bum ticker",
and I being so out of the loop these days had NO IDEA, what a shock. I'm
so pleased to know that all is going well, I guess Herb has been passing
on all the updates and info to me( and me not knowing because this is my
seldom used alternate e-mail address) including even photos of your
incision yeow! Sorry to have not been with you both to share the
anxiety, but I'm with you now to share the relief, what a reminder of
our fragile lives. I'll be in touch soon, and I'm following the updates.
All the best to you both, love Karyn
But funnily enough, I've not been bored or felt confined at all. No urge to get in the car and just drive. Nothing. I'm happy just to putter around. So far, my days are full. And when they are over, I'm whacked out. Hell, I'm whacked out before they're over. I think when you really are sick or in recovery mode as I am, safe with loved ones in comfortable surroundings, you don't notice how time just flies by. My body is telling me something I would never have imagined would apply to my slightly hyperactive personality. That I could be so shut down by anything. And most surprisingly I'm not all that bothered by it. I feel no need to rush out and go to work or check my voice mail messages, or even to play a music gig.
I feel no need to get out. Hell, maybe I'll just stay in my little room forever. Be a recluse. Ya, a recluse. That's what I'll be. I'll live my life thru email and Bum Ticker updates. I'll have selected visitors come over, bearing gifts of fruit and cookies. But only when I say so. I'll read books. Watch videos. Play music. Write some poetry or songs. Maybe record a CD. All here at home in my little room. I could order in Pizza, Chinese food and Swiss Chalet chicken. And Dory could do the shopping and cleaning and be at my beck and call (just as she has the last two weeks). And she could be my love slave. And then they could take me away to that padded cell...
Back to Index /
Sorry to interrupt your reading, but if
you are enjoying this journal so far, then you'd probably enjoy my music as well. Please check out my music site, listen to some
sample sound clips of my songs and please order one of my CD's. I'd really appreciate your support. Thanks, Steve.
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