My Pectus Journey

This is it! T-minus zero sleeps before surgery. My nerves are shot and the butterflies in my tummy are having a disco, but I know I'm in good hands.  So far, the worst part of the day is not having had any coffee yet. Even getting up at 4am is manageable with some good coffee....

So, a lot has happened since my last post.  Firstly, my surgery date was moved - twice!  My initial date was the beginning of December, but due to my Medical Aid plan changing, my surgeon's hospital was not on the list of approved hospitals covered by my Aid.  In retrospect, this actually worked out great, as my surgeon would have been on leave right after I got released from hospital, so if anything went wrong, I would have had to see another surgeon.  The new date was middle of January, but due to a schedule clash with the assisting surgeon, it was moved to Tuesday.  Once again, working out in my favour as I had so much to finish at work before the surgery.  I would also have missed out on a camp this weekend that I've been looking forward to for months!   Up until my pre-op check-up with my surgeon last week, I was still under the belief that I would be out of hospital within a few days, and I'd be able to start doing my "regular" activities af...

No, I'm not being dramatic.  And even though all surgeries carry risk, I know the risk is quite small.  I probably have a higher risk of dying walking from my car to the shops.  But the words my surgeon said when discussing my surgery keeps ringing in my head...  "Catastrophic blood loss"...  Once again, I know the odds are low, but it was important enough that she said it twice.  I realise they will be working very close my to my heart, and accidentally nicking it is a possibility.  When she said it the second time I made a joke saying that I guess being in an OR is probably the best place for something like that to happen.  She laughed and said "yeah, we'll just open you up and sort it out". But it's been milling around in my head for the past week.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not scared of death.  Not even my own death.  What scares me more than anything, is what is left behind when people die.  My cats are like my children, an...

On Saturday I did a hike with the group that we did for the first time last year in August.  Even though I still struggle on hikes, I honestly thought that I'd do a bit better this time around.  Especially as it was cooler, I had the intravenous iron in May, AND I've been doing a lot of hiking the past year.  The very first uphill nearly made me turn around.  Then I realised I'm the only one who knows the route, so there was no escape route for me 😣  And to add insult to injury, one of my regular group members is a 73 year old - and she was ahead of me!  She's only been hiking for little more than a year, and when she started she was recovering from a back injury, so it's amazing to see how far she's come.  But also sad that she's already doing better than me, and I've been hiking regularly for almost a decade (wow, typing that now just made me feel old!). Silver lining though, after the hike some of us stayed behind for a milkshake and we started tal...

It feels like I've been holding my breath since that fateful day in August when the physician sent me the email to let me know that we may finally have found the cause of my exercise intolerance.   On Wednesday (11 October 2023), I went to go see the cardiothoracic surgeon that someone on one of my Facebook groups recommended.  The surgeon performed the corrective surgery on his son last year, and she is one of the few surgeons in my area that does this surgery on adults.  My initial consultation appointment was already rescheduled from the previous Wednesday due to the school holidays, so deep inside I wasn't expecting any form of progress after the consultation.  I was expecting her to ask for more tests, more waiting, more trying something else first.  I went to my appointment armed with printed copies of all my reports and scans , I even took along a USB drive with the colour images of my xrays and CT scans as I couldn't print those on my little inkjet ...