Roger Zee Memoirs
2016 Recovery 01/25/21
After waking up in the Bronx Montefiore-Enstein ICU on 11/04/16 after open heart surgery, I face a daunting maze of rehab from an aortic valve replacement and single bypass. Fortunately, it's easy to sleep here with a steady diet of Percoset despite the tangle of wires and large drainage tubes protruding from my belly. Welcome to another excerpt from my memoirs, "Life and Times of a Pandemic Musician." B-|
First, I've got to give a huge shout out to family and friends who went above and beyond during this oh so difficult time -- my sister Liz Crowley, my ex-wife Gwendolyn Armstong, my kids Spencer and Charlotte Zeitel, and friends Rudy Feinauer and Jeanne Cashman. Without their love and help, I could not have made it out so quickly and smoothly. <3
Breathing better's the first order of the day. They give me a spirometer, a device which you blow into that pushes ping pong balls up to the top of a plastic tower. Kind of like banging a giant hammer at a fair to launch a ball up to ring the bell. Not as easy as you'd think, especially after surgery! They told me to practice four times a day. As a well-known blowhard, it didn't take me long to master it. >:P
After a day or so, they move me down to my old floor but into a different room. Of course, my old bed's already taken, LOL! They put a full swat team on my case -- physical and respiratory therapy, psychologist, social worker, and more. But weirdly, nothing's really scheduled. Personnel just walk in at any given moment. It feels like a little overkill. Of course I finally figure out why when I get home and start looking at the ton of bills. Definitely not an all-inclusive resort! ;-)
So hard to sleep at night. Nurses give me a lot of vital sign checks. On top of that, they only allow a certain number of Percosets per day. At times, I just can't deal with the pain. When fear overwhelms me, I ring the front desk, request a pill, then lie in cold-sweat agony awaiting the overburdened staff. Wonder how I'm ever going to survive without the opiates. Not to mention that my roommate's hooked up to an artificial heart whose alarm screams almost every hour when it falls off-line and stops beating! >:O
On the up side, I totally luck out with a rapid recovery. For that, I blame my twenty years of Taekwondo! Pretty soon they get me walking around the unit so my muscles don't atrophy. At first, for obvious reasons, they don't let me get out of bed without a nurse's help. Soon, I amuse the staff plenty with my ferocious grin as I buzz by around the unit saying hello to everyone on the floor. =^_^=
Of course, my little sister Liz drops by to hang every day. She even helps negotiate my release. The day before going home, a doctor and nurse stop by to remove my four large drainage tubes and eight heart monitor wires. The way they do it really surprises me! To remove the drains, the nurse simply grabs hold of a tube and yanks! Not so for the wires. Those she simply snips off next to the skin. Evidently they're biodegradable. ;-)
So Tuesday morning, 11/08/16 wearing my hospital gown under my jacket, Liz checks me out and brings around her car. Before you know it, we stop at the CVS pharmacy in North White Plains, NY to fill my prescriptions. Next stop, the church across from my apartment where I vote. And finally home where she makes lunch. She stays with me for almost a full week until business and her husband and daughter call her back to Vermont. What an angel! :-*
Before I finish, I must pay tribute to singer/guitarist/painter Jeanne Cashman. I know her in passing from performing at a number of jams around town -- Johnny Feds, Gil Parris, Chopper Carillo, Lois Columbo, Richie Georgiani as well as my own. One day Jeanne Facebook messages and asks if it's OK to drive over and drop off some fresh cooked food. WTF? Sure, I say, if it's no bother. Then I explain my diabetic restrictions. Over the next week or so, she stops by every other afternoon with delicious home cooked meals packed in Tupperware. One of the few "Born Again" I know who actually "Walk the Walk!" Forever grateful to you. :')
As I write today of this immensely frightening time, I ask God once again why he saved me. Of course, no response. For the life of me, I just can't figure out why. From the very start of my heart attack, virtually no one thought I would survive. When I ask my close friends and family about it, they just say, God saved you for a reason. Well why the F*ck did he do that and why won't he tell me? So just like every day, I grab my Fender Bass to go over tunes while pondering my situation. So now I play to Dan Fogelberg's first album, "Home Free." Got to mellow down easy. More later on the fame to come... One <3
YouTube - Wysteria - Dan Fogelberg
©2021 Roger Zee
