I had open-heart surgery on Nov. 17. Less than two weeks later I’m back on the treadmill getting 6 plus miles a day in. A little background. This was not emergency surgery. I had a congenital heart condition (bicuspid aortic valve) that had to be corrected or I was unlikely to live to be an old man, something I aspire to. Back in February they told me it was weakening enough that I should get it taken care of. I had time to get it done. I did my research and determined it would take about six weeks to recover, so I thought I’d do it around Thanksgiving and chill out the rest of the year.
Enough said. Here's a t-shirt sent to Flynn by some Cornell University colleagues.
It was May before I could meet with the surgeon in Indy (remotely due to COVID), and he agreed we could revisit it in the fall. I went to Indy in mid-October to meet him in person and we set Nov. 17 as the date.
As the date approached, COVID started to explode in Indiana. I called them about 10 days before the surgery and they hadn’t heard it would be a problem. The day before the surgery, my wife, Yvonne, and I went to Indy and got an Airbnb near the hospital. I was supposed to report at 5am for prep.
It was a remarkable and humbling experience. While we all like to think the work we do is important, and in the grand scheme of things it may be, but the work the hospital staff do is nothing short of miraculous. They really are heroes.
Around 6pm that evening before the surgery, we got a call from the surgeon saying that things were looking pretty tight and there was a chance we could get there in the morning and have the surgery canceled. If it was, it would be postponed until spring 2021 at the earliest. I don’t know if you’ve dealt with surgery like this before, but you spend days beforehand drinking special fluids, bathing in special antibiotic soaps, sticking antibiotic cream up your nose (!) and other kinds of prep. I wanted this over with!
The guy we know and love. Here's Flynn in pre-pandemic and pre-surgery days at the Cyberinfrastructure Building.
Thankfully, when we got to the hospital I was taken right into surgery prep and the game was afoot! But the COVID excitement wasn't over yet. Yvonne was able to hang out in the hospital during the surgery and even come back the next morning when I was awake, but soon after, the announcement came that that day was the end of visitation in the hospital. Now this was moot for us because Yvonne was driving back to Bloomington that day, but it shows you just how close we cut it back in May when we were spit-balling dates for the procedure.
It was a remarkable and humbling experience. While we all like to think the work we do is important, and in the grand scheme of things it may be, but the work the hospital staff do is nothing short of miraculous. They really are heroes.
