I'm home.

Rereading my previous blog posts, I only vaguely remember posting them. Even when I was better and more responsive in the hospital I was still drugged up and the days sort of blended together.

Thank you everyone for your support. It helped much more than I could ever express.

Around Saturday night I hit the point where I was just irritable and impatient, which was a very good sign. I was very much ready to go home, and my doctors were remarking that I was looking good. I still had a few tests, but Sunday was more or less a waiting day. We changed rooms on Saturday to get away from my extremely ill-tempered roommate. His ire was never directed at me, of course, but when he wasn't confused, he was belligerent and abusive to the wonderful nurses who remained very professional.

I got the defibrillator on Monday around 11. They moved me early in the morning to Hackensack Memorial and there wasn't actually a lot of waiting. The surgery itself apparently went longer than it should have (about 2 hours) but was a big success. The weird part is they gave me a local anesthetic and didn't quite knock me out, so I vaguely remember the beginning and the end of it. It was very bizarre. They did put me under in order to test the thing since there were electric shocks involved. I still wish there were some sort of designer defib that you could stick in your chest to look like Iron Man. That would be AWESOME.

I stayed overnight for observation. That was a very very rough night. I think it had more to do with the compress they put on the wound to make sure it closed, but it felt like I went jousting and lost. Now that the bandage is off it feels MUCH better. It's just mainly that blunt tiring kind of sore. In the hospital, codeine was only doing so much, but now the Tylenol is perfectly adequate.

They tested the defib on Tuesday morning, and everything looks good. I can shower tomorrow - I can get the wound wet as long as I keep the spray off it. The neat thing is they use this glue now. No stiches, no staples, they just shellacked my shoulder and this glue will remain while the wound heals and it'll come off by itself.

I have limited mobility, but that should get better. I've got exercises to do, and I'll be following up with the doctor in two weeks and get an update on how far I can push it.

I'm home now, safe and sound. The worst part is over and now it's just recovery.