Progress and moving on

I'm not ashamed to admit that I have had therapy before. It was so helpful to me and taught me many good coping skills. This heart trauma with Michael has been a little bit beyond what my coping skills could handle so I decided to see another psychologist. I was really nervous but it ended up being the right thing for me to do. He was great, listened to my heart trauma, shook his head and said, "You are doing great considering all that you have been through." He gave me some homework, to write, exercise, and to spend some quality time with my boys. I left feeling like I was normal, and that I was doing well. I'm actually excited to see him again. Michael has been home for about a week now and no other symptoms have surfaced. (knock on wood) It's comforting for me and the boys to have him home and my hope is that our comfort won't be taken away again. After they took the wires off around his sternum from the second open heart surgery last week, they decided to leave the wound open. He has a 9 inch long, 2 inch wide, 1 inch deep wound. Our home health nurse came and put a wound vac on it last Wednesday and I got to see it for the first time. It was very raw and real and looked like someone had hacked his chest with an ax. A wound vac is the coolest contraption it works by osmosis and heals the wound from the inside out. So far it has just been about 5 days that he has been wearing the wound vac and his wound has shrunk about an inch and half. It is amazing at what people can come up with today. Michael seems to be doing a little better this time, less sick. The antibiotics take a major toll on his body though and his new "old man" walk worries me. My hope is that it won't last forever and I can get the old "Michael swagger" back. We have two weeks on antibiotics and then they want to do a "White blood cell" test. The doctors are worried that this yeast that the gall bladder was releasing into his system is still there. And if it is they are worried there is a "different source" that is holding onto the yeast. The white blood cell test is when they inject a dye into Michael's system and the dye will highlight any more infections that are brewing. Because Michael has a dicron tube in place of where his torn aorta is and a mechanical valve where his tricuspid valve is it is more inclined to be the source. We hope that will not be the case, because they would have to open him up again. I don't think I could handle that. I'm trying to hope that we can continue upward and not fall back to day one again. For now we are grateful for where we are and where we continue to strive to be. One day I'm hoping that I really can look back on all of this and feel like it was just a nightmare.