So there I was in IMCU, no longer tethered to any arcane medical gimmickry, free to move about the room on my own and even walk down the hall with an escort. I was already back on a solid diet, and was beginning to dread mealtimes. Not only was my highly restricted diet rather boring, but there were other reasons I'll address in another post.
I even managed an extremely cautious shower. My respiratory therapist was unhappy with my progress with the spirometer but admitted I was doing much better with the easy-PAP treatment. The spirometer you can see at the link, the easy-pap is similar to a CPAP, except that you exhale back into the mouthpiece, which measures the strength of your lungs.
On my 2nd day in IMCU I even got to talk to my surgeon, and managed a couple of questions before he hurried back out. Over the course of the day they were working on my discharge papers, setting up follow-up appointments and referral to rehab, and writing prescriptions. And they removed the stitches from my chest tube incisions. The incision where they split open my chest and the ones in my legs from where they harvested veins for the bypass were sealed with superglue, no stitches needed. Then in the afternoon they hustled me out the door to free up the bed for another victim.
Yep, barely a week after my initial visit to the hospital, and less than 5 days after having my ribcage split open, I was free to go home. I would have left even earlier, except that my surgeon pulled another one of his abrupt departures in the middle of finalizing my discharge paperwork, so I had to wait for him to return.
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