Just got back home last night. My god but it's good to be back! My two cats, Brian and Dave were as happy to see us as we were to see them and today we go and get Steve and Luke to bring them home from puppy camp. I'm walking really well, but still carrying the cane for safety's sake. I'm starting back at my pipe smoking very slowly. The first day out of the hospital I took only a couple puffs and the flavor just wasn't there in my daily blend (my own H&H hybrid of which I'm inordinately proud) but I figured that was probably due to the beating I'd taken in surgery. The Portland VA surgical team did a top notch job, but open heart surgery really kicks your butt! Anyway, I also was still pretty shaky overall at that point. A couple days later and I smoked again and enjoyed it more, but the tobacco still tasted different to me. Blander, lacking the complexity I really enjoy. I still chalked that up to my tastebuds recovering from general anesthesia. Yesterday on the long trip home I smoked a whole half bowl and it was almost normal tasting and really calming. I found that sitting in a car for hours was much harder on me than being able to get up and move around whenever the spirit moved me. In my case, the spirit moves me a lot. Today I'll be sitting back on my own chair on my own front porch looking out over our little acre and I can't tell you how much I'm looking forward to that. I'll just play it by ear, which is undoubtedly a very mixed metaphor for smoking, but I'll let my body be my guide. I've gotten real good at listening to it.
Thanks to all you guys for the welcomes and the kind thoughts. I'm so glad to still be alive. Dodged a real bullet here. I'm looking forward to three more decades of living; especially now that my heart, brain and other vital organs are getting their first full oxygenation in years.
One thing I noticed that I really want to share is that I stopped smoking a week before surgery and didn't smoke again for a period of nearly two weeks and never felt any of the sort of withdrawal I would have experienced if this was back in my long-ago cigarette smoking days. I'll do a full post on this tomorrow. Plus I may post an email I'm putting together to let neighbors and nearby friends know what's been going on.
Hell of an odyssey.
