There is a lot to complain about in a hospital room.  There is no instant gratification.  I learned this anew last week in four and a fraction days spent in Aventura Hospital’s specialized areas.  My operation was on Tuesday and I was home on Friday before noon.  I was lucky.  I also had some very specialized experts in those rooms and I was sedated and unconscious for most of Tuesday and Wednesday.

I am stating at the outset that Dr. Alfredo Rego saved my life – perhaps for the second time.  Last April was when he cleared my left carotid artery, closed to 99% and now opened to 95%. They noted back then that the right artery had a curious “ulcer” that threatened my life.  They used medications from that time to this and when the right artery was opened it was found to be clogged in such a difficult fashion that unclogging needed two surgeons and “it was the most difficult carotid artery encountered“by Dr. Rego.

I think it marvelous that I am home today.  I think I could have been released from the intensive care unit earlier. I was kept in intensive care; then sent for a night in a private room where I chafed over being kept so long.  I felt too good to stay in the hospital.  I am glad that I am home and my directions from the doctor tell me that I will be able resume all my former activities in ten days.  Not bad for someone who could have died instead of being saved.

Lest some think this is overly dramatic let me assure you that I fully understand how close I was to not coming out of the operation successfully.  I did not expect to be so free of pain or to be able to navigate to the bathroom after the catheter was taken out.  But time moved on and I improved and little by little for a very short time I gained in strength and expected an early release.  For someone like me this was not soon enough.

I must say some words of affection for the nursing staff.  These were wonderful hardworking people.  They served bad food cheerfully and found me hard to deal with because I wanted to do a lot of the things they did for me by myself.  I guess that is as good a statement about how strong I am and how well the doctor did his work.

A great many skills used in saving a life are of the bureaucratic kind that say you must do “A” before “B” and the doctor must sign this before you put your signature on the line promising that all of the above is your responsibility and the hospital has none.  I cannot be more grateful than I am for those are the skills that have allowed me to get back to writing THINKING ALLOWED.