Early last Wednesday morning, Sandra sat alone in the lobby of the cardiac procedures unit at Kaiser Santa Clara Medical Center. The bright lights and intensity of the cardiac ICU faded into the background of the joyous Christmas and New Year season. Inside the unit, a surgeon was replacing the implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) that was placed into my chest in 2011.

An ICD is a small device designed to deliver a shock to a heart that goes out of rhythm. A surgeon cuts a 3-inch incision into the upper chest and places the ICD into the tissue. It’s like dropping the device into the breast pocket of a dress shirt. Waiting while a surgeon performs a procedure on her husband is old hat for Sandra. She felt lonely and helpless as usual, but put the outcome in God’s hands as always.

A little more than an hour after she left me in the surgical prep area, the surgeon came out to the lobby to tell Sandra that the procedure went perfectly. Shortly after that, she was in the recovery room laughing at my corny jokes caused by the light anesthesia. On doctor’s orders, I spent the night in the hospital for observation.

Over the past 9 years, Sandra has endured over 120 nights in the hospital to be by my side. This time, I finally persuaded her to go home and sleep in her own bed. The past two and a half months have been especially hard on her. Reluctantly, she agreed to go home. Alone in a dark hospital room, I thought about her and our life together.

To borrow a phrase from today’s young and ambitious women, Sandra is a badass. When we met, I was like a ship floating aimlessly in the vast ocean. I had big dreams and ambition without focus or purpose. As Sandra still says, I’m a dreamer. As our relationship grew, so did the dreams and ambition. When I fell in love with her, my life’s purpose came into focus.

For those who don’t know, let me tell you who Sandra Peralta is. She’s an amazing mother who continues to guide our two adult daughters. She was a star student in grade school, ASB president at her high school, and an award-winning elementary school principal (2013 Silicon Valley Principal of the Year). She’s done it all with the utmost grace, integrity, and compassion.

She would vehemently disagree that being my life partner has been the most challenging part of her life. But, it’s true. While I traveled around the country as a corporate executive, Sandra took on the lion’s share of raising our two wonderful girls. When I knocked on doors campaigning for public office, she walked door-to-door with me. She has been my guardian angel since a heart attack changed all of our lives in 2010.

I’m a driven and independent man. No matter the circumstance – chasing professional success or living with compromised health – my love for Sandra has always led me to support her dreams and daily obligations. But let’s face it, living a full life with a compromising illness can’t be done alone. Even stubbornly independent people like me require substantial support.

Since open heart surgery in November, I’ve been pretty high maintenance. I haven’t been cleared to drive, so Sandra takes me to the many doctor appointments. The dressing for the wound on my chest needs to be changed daily. I have a small opening in my abdomen for the electrical wire that powers the pump connected to my heart. That needs to be dressed every other day.

Sandra changes the dressings every evening despite managing a full work schedule and helping her sisters care for elderly parents. She learned how to dress the wounds from the LVAD team at Kaiser. I want to take over these responsibilities, but she’s not ready to delegate them to me. I could insist to do it myself. However, if I’ve learned anything in our 30-plus years together, insisting isn’t such a smart idea.

We both have heard many stories about how chronic illness breaks up marriages and causes irreparable harm to families. In fact, according to the AARP, “the divorce rate for couples in which one spouse has a serious chronic illness is as high as 75 percent.” This is especially the case in younger couples. I was 46 and Sandra was 43 when disaster struck in 2010.

Financial stress and lifestyle changes that limit activity are major reasons that lead to tense marriages. Our annual income dropped significantly when I could no longer command an executive salary. With a hefty mortgage and two teenage daughters looking ahead to college, our finances were stretched to the limit overnight. Family gatherings, community events, and our social calendar took a backseat to the illness.

Added to those trials, depression and anxiety in a chronically ill partner bring feelings of inadequacy, self-loathing, and shame to an already strained relationship. For caregivers, fatigue, impatience, and resentment seep into their daily lives. Together with financial and lifestyle changes, the mental health of the couple is a train wreck waiting to happen.

Sandra and I have experienced and continue to face all of the tests that confront a couple with a chronically sick partner. In his oft-quoted first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul the Apostle wrote that love, “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” Somehow, Sandra, the girls, and I have persevered.

I truly believe that Sandra’s strength is the reason that we’ve weathered so many storms. She has an unshakeable faith in God, an uncompromising will, and a limitless reserve of hope. More important, she truly loves me, Marisa, and Erica. St. Paul also wrote, “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.” That’s Sandra.

I can’t help but wonder at the amazing gifts that God bestowed on her. I’m eternally grateful that He made our life together the primary beneficiary of her talents. She has many titles: Mother, Daughter, Sister, Wife, Comadre, Caregiver, Teacher, Principal, School District Administrator. Yup, she’s a badass!

Oh boy…

***

I was sitting alone on a folding chair in the lobby of an upscale social club. Double doors opened up to a long marble-floored hallway that led to a podium where the club’s director stood managing traffic. On one side of the hallway was a casual bar where cocktail tables dotted the linoleum floor and flat screen TVs lined the walls. Wearing medical scrubs, club members relaxed at the tables sipping drinks after a long shift.

 On the other side of the elegant hallway was a stately dining room. Guests sat at round linen-covered dinner tables. The well-dressed club members enjoyed gourmet meals, chatted over drinks, or played cards. The clientele was an eclectic mix of doctors, hospital administrators, business executives, and public officials.

 The club director was a tall, dark-haired, and handsome young man in his early 30s. Wearing a navy blue blazer, charcoal trousers, a crisp white shirt, and a royal blue tie, he looked regal standing at the podium. He welcomed club members with a warm grin and a gracious southern drawl. Even though he wore a yellow surgical mask, you could see his eyes smiling above the sterile covering.

***

The passage above never really happened. Or…maybe it did.

For a few days after the surgeon successfully closed my chest cavity, I remained on Propofol as doctors and nurses watched over me. This drug is a powerful sedative that’s used for major surgery. It gained notoriety almost a decade ago when singer Michael Jackson famously died of an overdose.

When administered correctly by an anesthesiologist, Propofol is invaluable as its properties keep patients asleep during surgery and causes memory loss while sedated. The medication worked like a charm for me. I don’t remember anything about surgery or the days afterward when my chest was wide open.

According to the Journal of Neurosurgical Anesthesiology, hallucinations are common for patients that receive even a modest dose of Propofol. As the sedative wears off, the dreams are referred to as post-operative delirium. Some hallucinations are based on reality. In other words, activity happening around the patient could be translated in the brain in a different way.

I’m pretty sure that post-operative delirium danced around in my mind as the Propofol slowly left my system. The passage above is in italics because it was part of the hallucinations. I experienced this phenomenon in 2010 when I spent the summer in the ICU. I wrote about this in an earlier post (Check out my blog post from June 22, 2016: https://esereport.com/2016/06/22/summer-in-the-waiting-room-how-faith-family-and-friends-saved-my-life-excerpt-52-new-excerpt/).

The “social club” hallucination is based on real events. I remember so many of these types of dreams from the summer of 2010. Interestingly, this time I subconsciously understood that my experiences weren’t completely true while I was still emerging from the delirium. When Propofol finally washed out of my system, I intuitively knew that something went wrong again.

When I described to Sandra what I knew was a “dream,” she recounted real events in the ICU. The well-dressed club director was actually a nurse who cared for me during the days when I was emerging from the fog. That explains the yellow surgical mask. Sandra said that the nurse stood at the door to my room typing into a laptop that sat on a podium.

In the “dream,” I remember having conversations with doctors, nurses, physician assistants, and the hospital’s managing executive. All these people were members of the social club in the hallucination. One incident I will never forget from the delirious dream was the club’s director cheering me on as he helped me to walk. According to Sandra, all of these events happened while I was in the ICU.

Many characters came in and out of my dreams. I reconnected with old friends and welcomed the faces of family. While all of this was happening in my confused brain, I was semi-conscious and talking to people in the real world. During the first few days of consciousness, I borrowed a phrase (“oh boy!) from my Compa Pancho. He uses “oh boy” when he’s surprised or bothered by something.

I must have sensed that I was in medical trouble. Everyone who visited my room one day remembers that I repeated, Oh, boy!” at least a million times in a hoarse and whispered voice. This brought comedic relief for my family and the ICU team. My daughter Erica described me as my usual goofy self, but “just extra.”

I held court by telling stories that didn’t make sense, many replete with every variation of the F-word like a character from The Sopranos. I invited nurses to join me and Sandra for dinner and a movie. I tried to convince one of the Kaiser speech therapists that we worked at Comcast together. Although she had the same name as a former colleague, she never worked there.

The patience and professionalism of the cardiovascular ICU team was astonishing. The team cared for me with warm smiles and supportive words throughout my state of silliness. Going through this experience for the second time was frustrating and a little scary. It also gave me hope. It meant that I was alive and in the beginning stages of recovery.

***

President Trump stood next to a conference table at one of his resorts. As the president walked toward his office, he looked tired and aggravated. He wore an ill-fitting business suit and his infamous hair was messy. Sandra greeted Trump in the hallway with a hug telling him that she was honored to meet him. Watching from a hospital bed in another room, I was disappointed with Sandra.

***

How Sandra and I ended up at a Trump resort during my delirium is a story in itself. Friends and family who visited the ICU told me how I recounted the story of Sandra hugging and complimenting the president. In a raspy voice, caused by the breathing tube that was in my throat for almost a week, I summoned visitors closer to me so I could describe the scene.

Oh boy!

**********

Next Time: Beginning the long road to recovery