Tag Archives: hospital

Support

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In an earlier installment of this comic I said that when I was admitted to the hospital and was told I’d need a heart transplant, my first thought was “ok, personal bankruptcy. Fine, seven years of no access to anything. Let’s just do it. Maybe I can disconnect myself from the family so that they don’t have to sit through this shit”.

This week talks about the outpour of mental and monetary support that our family received. It was incredible and very moving. People that I had not heard from in over 10 years, friends of the family, old coworkers and employers, friends of friends, everyone came forward.

When drawing this episode I re-visited that time again and re-realized what incredible help we received. Thank you to everyone who helped holding us through those tough times!

Thanks for reading and big hugs.

Stefan

Home bound.

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Hi all,
This week is about coming home for the first time since I was admitted to the hospital. It was a pretty big deal. I had been pretty close to death, gone through my first open heart surgery, and now had a device that my life was depending on. I had to clean and change the hole where the chord went into my body to make the LVAD, the pump, go. I had to remember to take meds everyday. There were a lot of things to remember, to possibly forget or do wrong and to freak out about.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Also, having two exceptionally active and curious four year olds in the midst of equipment that could not be tampered with or supplies that had to stay as bacteria free as possible was a concern too. Despite all this, things went fantastically well. The kids were amazing an we had none of the troubles I had anticipated. Per usual, Christine had to coordinate a bunch of stuff, the grandparents were basically a second set of parents during all this time, plus friends who helped out with various needs. I don’t know how many times I was called “The Bionic Man” or a “Cy-borg” during this time.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and hope you’re all doing really well.

 

Hugs,

Stefan

Support from my peers.

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Greetings,
I am trying out publishing these every other week. Bi- monthly? I can’t remember what it’s called. Bi-weekly? Anyway, it feels like that might be a good pace.

I am currently on Spring Break with my family and some friends out by Zion National Park. It was a loooong drive out here. It seemed longer than I had anticipated. The landscape out here in Arizona and Utah is incredible though. I feel like I am in a copy of National Geographic when I look at the huge, red mountains and rocks. It puts me back to the old Western movies I saw as a kid and I wish that suddenly a band of the Native Americans I idolized back then would come riding over the prarie.

Anyway, this week is about my first encounter with the fantastic heart transplant support group. It was so great to connect with other people in the same, or similar, boat as mine. Swapping stories and experiences about hospital stays, medication side effects (the tremors!) and other morose things. There were also people there who were on the wait-list to have their transplants. I remember a woman who looked very uncomfortable as we joked about the different harsh experiences we’ve had. No wonder. We tried to assure her that things would work out fine and I was happy to learn later that her hanging out with us really had eased her fear.

Thanks for reading and hope you all are doing well.

Stefan

Holiday time…

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Hi all,

Happy Holidays to everyone and thanks for all the support!

The end of the year always seem to rush up on me, so here we are all of the sudden. I am taking a well needed break and get to spend some quality time with my family. I hope you all are doing something nice for yourselves and get some time to relax.

holiday time image

My new installements have been coming slower this past half year, due to me being more busy with my company, but I am aiming to balance things a bit differently in 2018. I guess I simply need to add more hours to the day. Overall, 2017 was a good year and I am looking forward to an exciting 2018.

Please stay in touch, hug each other and enjoy being alive!

Stefan

Family closeness…

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This week talks about family closeness and more time in temp housing. Somebody had to be with me at all times to make sure everything was ok. I was lucky to have my mom come over to the US to help out. Christine had to be home with the kids for most of the time, but, thanks to all the unbelievable help from her parents, was able to come down so we could be together here and there.

I can’t imagine how overwhelming it must have been for Christine and my mom. Christine had to hold up the fort at home, deal with the kids and take care of all the communication and practicalities. My mom who was 69 at the time and had trekked over here on her own. She had to deal with the crisis situation in a foreign country, in a second language, and drive me back and forth to the hospital, to the pharmacy or wherever I needed to go.

0236_iLeftMy family closeness

Staying in the same room, 24/7, for close to three weeks offered some precious quality time. We talked about our family, old adventures, growing up, my mom’s life history (which is interesting to say the least) and a bunch of other random things. Needless to say that kind of extended time together never happens anymore. With anybody. At the same time, it also awakened the good ol’ parent-kid relationship full force and there a few big blow-outs, sometimes with yelling and tears. It all ended well though and I am certainly lucky to have the families I have around me.

Thanks all for stopping by and reading.

Walking is it.

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Hi all,
This week’s episode is about getting into the new routines in the three week stay at the temp housing. It was one step closer to being back into normal life and there were many new routines to get used to, to not forget (!) and, therefore, be nervous about: taking the meds, keeping the LVAD batteries charged, change them in the right order, not getting caught with the chord that went in through my stomach and up to my heart to the pump/propeller that was attached to my heart.

I_left_my walking route

Walking was a central part of recovery and boy, did I learn every millimeter of that walk. I consider myself extremely (!) lucky to be able to be where I was though. Sure, it was a bit of a drab business hotel close to the highway, but it was peaceful, the staff was very nice, it was right by a slough that came from the San Francisco Bay. And it was a hotel! I was being very well taken care of. You’d hear frogs there and once we saw a small leopard shark by the edge of the water. The neighborhood was a car dominated suburban, strip mall sprawl-land, but there were sidewalks to walk on pretty much everywhere. There were restaurants and a grocery store in the strip mall within walking distance, once I healed up more. And, the weather was pleasant.

Thank you all for coming here and supporting this and I hope you had a good Halloween, in case you celebrate that.

Big hugs,
Stefan