Nathan: 0:24

Hello everyone, I'm Nathan

Alicea: 0:26

and I'm Alicea

Nathan: 0:28

And welcome to this special bonus episode of Adventures and Mousecapades. Today's episode is a little different and a lot more personal. My guest is someone very special: my best friend, wife and co-host, who just happened to have open heart surgery about 10 days ago and somehow still has a better sense of humor than I do. She's recovering like a champ and we're sitting down to talk about what it's like to get your chest cracked open and come out with even more strength and grace than before.

Alicea: 1:01

Aw, aw.

Nathan: 1:03

Welcome back, Alicea.

Alicea: 1:05

Thank you.

Nathan: 1:06

I wasn't going to do one of these episodes, but you are doing so well and we needed to filler to hit our schedule on Monday because our guest has a little bit of a cold. Anyhow, thank you for being on. I love you so much.

Alicea: 1:22

You're welcome and I love you too.

Nathan: 1:24

Aw shucks.

Nathan: 1:27

We've talked ever so briefly about kind of what's going on. For folks who weren't aware, Alicea had aortic hemiarch replacement surgery on Friday, August 29th at UW Medical Center. Excuse me, University of Washington. For those of you not in the vernacular medical center, she's nine days post-surgery, as we sit down to record. Can you share a little bit more about kind of what led up to your surgery?

Alicea: 1:52

Yeah, I don't mind sharing medical history at all. I mean, people want to know they can figure it out anyway.

Nathan: 2:00

It is out on the webs. We've been keeping a caring bridge with our website going.

Alicea: 2:05

So my family has a history of high cholesterol. Sometimes they're extremely fit and still have high cholesterol. I am not extremely fit and I have high cholesterol. And just because of family history, the doc wanted to do a CT scan just to see how my arteries were and make sure there wasn't any blockage. Or if there was, then we'd have a plan forward.

Alicea: 2:29

So I did that and she pinged me, wanting to get on a phone call with me right away. I'm like okay, I honestly didn't think anything of it. I'm like okay, yeah, so I have some blockage. Yeah.

Alicea: 2:41

Boy, oh boy, fun, fun.

Alicea: 2:42

I didn't have any blockage Boy, oh boy, fun, fun. I didn't have any blockage at all, nothing.

Nathan: 2:46

Right on, yes, good job.

Alicea: 2:54

My heart is very healthy. My arteries are very healthy.

Alicea: 2:55

We did a couple of other tests that were extremely uncomfortable, just to make sure that the arteries were okay and, bar this one little thing, my arteries are very healthy.

Nathan: 3:05

Yes.

Alicea: 3:06

But she did find an aneurysm in my ascending aorta.

Nathan: 3:12

Yeah.

Alicea: 3:12

And I didn't know what an aneurysm was. For some reason I thought an aneurysm was a type of a clot.

Nathan: 3:19

I always thought it was like a bleed. Yeah.

Alicea: 3:22

I didn't know. I mean, I've heard about it all the time. You hear of brain aneurysms, you hear of aneurysms bursting or whatever.

Nathan: 3:30

Yep

Alicea: 3:31

And they are, especially if they're in your aorta, they can be pretty fatal, pretty quickly.

Nathan: 3:38

Yeah.

Alicea: 3:39

And my aneurysm was large enough that they wanted to do a surgery sooner rather than later, and I am a person who has a bias more towards action with regards to medical procedures.

Nathan: 3:57

Yeah.

Alicea: 3:58

Like I don't want to prolong the inevitable.

Alicea: 4:02

I did this with my knee surgery too. I'm like, yeah, I could continue to get shots year after year after year, but all that does is mask the problem. It doesn't actually help it and it could potentially make it worse.

Alicea: 4:16

So, after talking with the doctor, we found a really good thoracic surgeon cardiothoracic surgeon just from people that we know at church.

Alicea: 4:26

We are so blessed to have such a wonderful community and, yeah, kind of fast-tracked this to get a surgery going.

Alicea: 4:35

I am extremely thankful that we found this. This kind of came out of nowhere. You can't tell if you have an aneurysm usually, because when you find out, that's when it's burst or...

Alicea: 4:49

whatever

Alicea: 4:50

.

Nathan: 4:50

Usually yeah.

Alicea: 4:51

An aneurysm is a dilation of an artery. It's like a ballooning, if you will, you may understand it a little better. The artery itself gets a little large in a specific area, the walls thin, all that.

Nathan: 5:05

Yeah, it's interesting

Alicea: 5:07

. All of the medical professionals we've talked to have all been like, huh, how did they find this one? Because it's almost like expected, nobody actually goes looking for these, it's just they stumble across guessing, because they've done some other check. So it's been interesting. What were your thoughts and feelings when you first learned you needed open heart surgery?

Alicea: 5:32

Well, crap. I will say I am a very optimistic person with regards to health. I feel that doctors have studied for. a reason they know what they're doing, they enjoy what they're doing for the most part, I'm guessing and are really good at what they do. I never had any doubts about the medical team or anybody that we saw, and I wasn't worried at all. Really, I don't know why. I just felt like I didn't need to be worried at all. I did that for you.

Nathan: 6:14

Yes, and I know I was very worried.

Alicea: 6:18

I know that it probably was a source of frustration, but I don't know, I just I wasn't super worried about it. It was just like oh yeah, this is another thing that I have to go through and do and work through. And please don't take that as me not understanding the seriousness of this, because I totally understood how serious and understand how serious this is.

Nathan: 6:46

Or the risks.

Alicea: 6:47

Yeah, there are lots of risks. There are things that could happen, there are things that won't happen. You know, it's just, it's all over the place. It's a major surgery and they were doing some major things to my body to make sure it got fixed correctly. But I knew all of that was out of my control. I couldn't do a thing with that at all and I don't feel like I'm really a worrier with regards to stuff, because, first off, it stresses me out. And there's nothing I can do about it.

Nathan: 7:22

Yeah, yeah, no, I think I did our, uh, your fair share of worrying and my fair share of the worrying and all of the yeah, I, I am a worrying warrior when it comes to stuff like that.

Nathan: 7:41

how did you prepare mentally and emotionally? Was it just you were good to go?

Alicea: 7:47

I did some research here and there.

Alicea: 7:50

Because there's not a lot of there's really just not a lot of information out there, Like I wanted firsthand accounts from people that have gone through this. Like this specific thing, because there are a lot of things that can happen with the heart and open heart surgeries, and this was not having to do with the heart really at all. It was the aorta coming directly out the top of the heart. It was that little bit right there. It wasn't the heart itself, there wasn't any valve issues or anything like that.

Nathan: 8:21

Right.

Alicea: 8:23

So I did a little bit of searching just on, like reddit or whatever, because people put their own accounts there, and I found a couple good, good ones I thought that just gave me a better sense of what would be happening afterwards, and I think that was the big thing is okay, like I don't want to know too much about what is going to be happening during the surgery, because I know myself and I know my brain does not like hearing that type of things and will decide to shut down and said, nope, you're going to go to sleep now, so...

Alicea: 8:57

But I wanted to know what would happen after and I am very glad that I looked at that.

Alicea: 9:03

We did hear from, like I said, somebody at church who has gone through this exact same thing. We're right around the same age. She was just a wealth of information, but I didn't know what to ask. Like we didn't know what we didn't know. And just in my research online I was like okay, so when I get out, I'm going to have a tube in my throat for breathing and I'm going to have a tube in my throat for breathing.

Alicea: 9:27

I'm going to and I'm going to be awake afterwards.

Nathan: 9:28

Yeah, that shocked me.

Alicea: 9:29

I was like you're going to uh and I'm going to have tubes in my chest and I'm going to have all sorts of other stuff coming out of me. I'm just keeping track of things and that was very helpful. Um, I was like I didn't feel any of that stuff. I'll say I didn't feel any of that stuff, like I didn't feel any of that on my body at all.

Nathan: 9:46

Yeah, except for the.

Alicea: 9:48

Except for the tube going into my throat. Yes, yes, I felt that.

Nathan: 9:52

When they said that you were going to be intubated post-surgery and into recovery up in the ICU that was actually my I had a lot of existential dread and worry just about the whole thing.

Alicea: 10:09

Yeah.

Nathan: 10:10

But my biggest concern about the procedure in the aftermath... whatever you want to call it, like, the immediate post procedure, as you're starting to wake up and you're still going to be intubated and on a breathing machine, I knew right then I was like she's not going to be a happy camper. She's going to freak out. Like, it's not going to go well... and I think you did really well for a while and then did have a little bit of a freak out moment...

Alicea: 10:40

I did have a freak out, and I can tell you exactly why I had a freak out.

Nathan: 10:43

Yeah.

Alicea: 10:44

Like I don't, I understand the mechanics behind it somewhat.

Alicea: 10:49

I don't think I understood them all the way. I think if I had been explained a little bit more about what that means how far down the tube goes into my lungs that would have helped out a lot. Because I thought like you know, stopped right here.

Nathan: 11:02

Yeah, at the middle of your neck

Alicea: 11:03

Middle of my neck, like you know, stopped right here, yeah, at the middle of your neck, middle of my neck, and I really thought saliva was pooling down at the bottom of that thing and getting into my lungs. I thought I was drowning.

Alicea: 11:15

That was the problem, I thought I was drowning in my own spit and I think if I had had a little bit of knowledge, more knowledge about the mechanics of how that all worked I would have been a little better about it.

Nathan: 11:29

That's a really good insight, and I know that you're probably not going to sit down and, and you know, share a big blog or anything on Reddit or something like that, and but this is actually kind of why I wanted to do this episode. I think hopefully this can help other people who go through a similar thing to know potentially what can happen, and that is definitely a thing to be aware of.

Nathan: 11:55

Coming out of surgery, any surgery, and if you're still going to be intubated, you still have the tube down your throat. Just be prepared, your lizard brain will take over and I'm not convinced that even if you had been explained exactly what was going on with that, that you still wouldn't have freaked out a bit.

Alicea: 12:17

Probably not, I don't know.

Nathan: 12:18

It's a very common...

Alicea: 12:20

Yes, I understand.

Nathan: 12:21

Yeah, it's actually super common to keep people under full sedation until the tubes are removed, and I know they had issues removing the tube.

Alicea: 12:29

I don't remember too much about it because they probably gave me some don't care medicine.

Nathan: 12:33

Oh, they did.

Alicea: 12:34

Yeah, because I was starting to freak out, I know.

Nathan: 12:43

You absolutely were, and yeah - you got several doses of don't feak out medicine. It was, I don't know, stuck in some way, like they tried to pull, and then it like, I don't know, there's some like inflation balloon that seals off the wrong pipe. I think yeah. Effectively and it wasn't deflating all the way or something like that. And it was... Yeah, it was just...

Alicea: 13:04

I really feel like understanding the mechanics of that would have helped me out a lot. Yeah.

Nathan: 13:09

Yeah, yeah. Well, other than that, is that kind of like the thing you remember most vividly about the day of surgery? Vivid in in air quotes there, cause you were pretty drugged up.

Alicea: 13:23

Yes, I was pretty drugged up. I remember going into the OR and they're asking what music I wanted, and I listened to Hamilton during medical procedures. That's just. It's just what I do. I listened to it during dental procedures. It helps with my anxiety. And I listened to it on the way on the OR or in the OR and they just put on some random one and they're like do you have any requests? And I said, let's do, You'll Be Back",

Alicea: 13:50

[Music] You'll be back, soon you'll see, you'll remember you belong me

Alicea: 13:58

You'll be back, time Time will ... [Music fades to background] tell

Alicea: 14:01

And and it was fun to hear the doctors and people in the OR singing along with that.

Nathan: 14:09

That was pretty awesome. One of the nurse updates that I... because they were calling me every couple hours and giving me updates and stuff, did mention that and said that they all had a really good time listening to Hamilton. So I think they kept it going after you were done or after you were. You were uh out cold.

Alicea: 14:27

So, that's awesome.

Alicea: 14:29

So I, I remember that coming on and then I don't remember anything until waking up.

Nathan: 14:35

Yeah.

Nathan: 14:37

Just kind of overall, what was your experience at University of Washington Medical Center in Montl ake? Any comments or thoughts or moments that stood out? Staff members that stood out?

Alicea: 14:49

Oh gosh, there's so many. I mean that is an amazing hospital.

Nathan: 14:53

Yeah, it is.

Alicea: 14:54

I am very thankful that we went there. I love that it's a teaching hospital. I love that they gave me the option to partake in a research study. I'm like, yes, I will help out any way that I can with anything I'm able to. So we did a research study, something about strokes.

Nathan: 15:13

Yeah, I think it was stroke correlation with open heart surgery and they did a bunch of blood draws throughout the procedure and then continue on after, and then a couple days after the surgery, two or three days after the surgery, you had an MRI of your brain to just confirm that there weren't any strokes and there weren't blood samples that they can use during surgery to predict the likely, a high likelihood or like that a stroke is about to occur or maybe is occurring, so they can catch that really early and do something about it or prevent it from happening. So, yeah, I mean that's fantastic. I'm, yeah, so proud of you for for being open and able to do that, definitely.

Alicea: 16:06

I mean people got to learn and anything. Any way I can help out, I'm all for it. Yeah. And a couple of times when they are removing the, the pacemaker wires, the temporary pacemaker, and then the chest tubes and stuff there were. They asked like are you okay with some grad students coming in and watching? I'm like, yeah, have on, come on in the more the earlier. You know, students coming in and watching.

Alicea: 16:27

You know I don't care. You guys see this stuff every day. I'm not. I'm not shy with all this, because you are professionals and you have to understand the human body.

Nathan: 16:37

Yeah, yeah.

Nathan: 16:38

What was the hardest part of being in the hospital and what helped you get through it all?

Alicea: 16:45

Um, the hardest part of being in the hospital would, I think, be knowing that folks were worried about me.

Nathan: 16:53

Yeah...

Alicea: 16:56

I don't know how to say it other than that, really, um, neither of us like being a burden on others.

Nathan: 17:02

Yeah yeah...

Alicea: 17:03

I mean, it is what it is. I I understand this was a huge undertaking, this was a huge process and I don't want to begrudge anybody's feelings on that on it at all.

Alicea: 17:14

I totally understand, but I don't like that. I was making people worry um, I think that was the hardest part of being in the hospital. The hospital was, I mean, it was comfortable, the food was good, the people were good. I was tired all the time. I'm still tired all the time.

Nathan: 17:30

Yeah. This is like it's part of the reason I wanted to do this, because I wanted to get you to sit up and do something for a little while. So thank you for agreeing to be interviewed as part of your rehab.

Alicea: 17:45

Yeah, as long as it's not mid-morning, we're good.

Nathan: 17:47

No, yeah, we've been getting up between 8 and 9, somewhere in there and then getting downstairs and you'll have breakfast and then you just crash for like two to three hours.

Alicea: 17:59

It's annoying.

Nathan: 18:01

Hey, it is your body recovery.

Alicea: 18:03

I know, I know I'm like I just slept body recovery I know, I know.

Alicea: 18:05

I know I'm like, I've just slept all night Come on, but no, I'm just like out.

Nathan: 18:13

Kind of moving on into post surgery and recovery... They had said that you were going to be in the hospital five to seven days and then what we learned was like day one of that five to seven is the day after surgery. You came home. Day four.

Alicea: 18:30

Yeah.

Nathan: 18:31

So you're like breaking land speed records, like everybody was so incredibly, like shocked.

Alicea: 18:38

Yeah, they were expecting me to be in the cardiac ICU for two days. I was in there for...

Nathan: 18:43

barely 24 hours.

Alicea: 18:44

Yeah, barely 24 hours.

Alicea: 18:47

Now, the transition from cardiac ICU to the cardiac care floor was a little rough because I had been sitting up for most of that day and I think, fell behind on pain meds a little bit.

Nathan: 19:01

Yeah, you did.

Nathan: 19:01

You got behind the pain curve.

Alicea: 19:03

Yeah, and that was not very good.

Nathan: 19:06

Well, and then they, the one I would say kind of fault, not fault. The one issue we had is they initially had sent somebody over with like a wheelchair to wheel you over. And we're just like uh, what yeah, like no, no. So they wheeled you over in a bed and got it all figured out.

Alicea: 19:28

And then, well, they had to transfer me to a different bed.

Nathan: 19:31

Well, yeah, because the ICU bed isn't what the floor bed is and blah, blah, blah.

Alicea: 19:35

That kind of hurt.

Nathan: 19:38

Yeah, because they got to do their thing, but it all worked out.

Nathan: 19:42

How are you feeling now, both physically and emotionally?

Alicea: 19:48

Physically, the exhaustion is an issue. I'm just I'm tired all the time. I know that's to be expected. My body is healing. It's just really weird because it's quite random on when it happens, except for like mid-morning. I'm gonna fall asleep, and then sometimes in the afternoon, it's random yeah I'll just start getting tired. So mentally I'm not entirely sure. I mean, I think I feel fine. I know I'm gonna get bored pretty soon yeah and then I'll start watching TV or something.

Alicea: 20:23

I've just got sports on and some things here and there, but because I fall asleep so easily, I'm just like I don't know if I want to start anything quite yet.

Nathan: 20:33

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense.

Nathan: 20:37

What surprised you the most about the recovery process so far? You know, you're a little, you know a week and a bit in.

Alicea: 20:44

Um, how quickly I got out of there, I guess.

Nathan: 20:46

Yeah.

Alicea: 20:47

My level of pain has been pretty low.

Nathan: 20:50

Yes, remarkably so.

Alicea: 20:52

Yeah, uh, and I am waiting for that other shoot to drop.

Nathan: 20:55

Uh huh.

Alicea: 20:57

I took some Oxy right before we came home just to to help with the ride home, and before that I think it had been a couple of days before I had any.

Nathan: 21:07

You've just been doing Tylenol and some muscle relaxers.

Alicea: 21:10

Yeah, muscle relaxer here and there and I'll feel a little bit of discomfort here and there from the incision site. Most of it is just muscle ache. My back and shoulder hurt every now and then quite a bit Just like muscly ache things, and I'm guessing it's just how I'm carrying myself. Stuff like that I don't know.

Nathan: 21:32

Well, it's also how they, how they set you up on the table, 'cause they kind of bend you over, yeah. I mean, they effectively bend you over backwards a little bit, so you get spatchcocked in open heart surgery.

Alicea: 21:45

Okay, so I'm going to amend my answer my ocular migraines.

Nathan: 21:50

Oh yeah!

Alicea: 21:51

I have a lot of those.

Alicea: 21:53

I am extremely thankful that it is just the aura flashes that I get and I don't get any pain from the migraines. It's just the flashes and I do not know how to explain ocular migraines it's just the the flashes. I recommend, if you are curious, look it up. There are actually some really interesting videos or imagery of what an ocular migraine looks like. I've been having probably five to ten a day, which is ridiculous.

Nathan: 22:25

That is a lot.

Alicea: 22:26

But, they do not last as long as my regular ocular migraines last. They're like maybe a minute, and usually... So when I have regular migraines, it'll start out as a very small dot somewhere in my field of vision and then it'll get bigger and bigger and bigger and encompass and it'll be like a circular bubble rim and it'll just get bigger, go out throughout my entire field of vision and then just disappear and that usually takes about half hour. For my regular ones.

Alicea: 23:00

These will be about one to two minutes long and it'll start out small and just be a little blip. It'll stay small maybe get a little bigger and then just go away.

Nathan: 23:10

Huh, and you used to have like what maybe? Well, I mean historically you've been not very many of them, but recently, in the recent, last couple of years, you've maybe had like what? One a month, maybe two a month. Now you're having like five to ten a day.

Alicea: 23:31

Yeah, yeah, it's been hormonal.

Nathan: 23:33

Yeah, yeah.

Alicea: 23:34

The migraines.

Nathan: 23:35

Yeah Well, except for post-surgery, and so thankful that these don't seem to have pain involved in them.

Alicea: 23:49

Yes, very much so.

Nathan: 23:53

So obviously we've had a ton of support from folks online, our friends, our family. We've got this meal train set up for most of the rest of the month. We're just so incredibly thankful for our various communities who have rallied around us, and I guess one of the questions that I had was, what role has that kind of played in your recovery? But I think we're really kind of early in that and I guess I want to pivot to like how has and I know you aren't finished with all of this...

Alicea: 24:33

No, just starting.

Nathan: 24:34

This is a two to three-month recovery, to get back to quote-unquote normal, but just so far. Like has this whole experience changed your perspective on life or health or anything else in any way?

Alicea: 24:52

I don't think so. Um, not really. I mean I'm pretty good about seeing a doctor if I'm having issues. I mean I'm not the best, but I still do go see a doctor if I have any issues and I highly recommend doing that. Go to see somebody if you're not feeling well.

Alicea: 25:08

Yeah, and this was just a regular lab test type thing, you know, just regular blood work that hadn't been done in a couple of years, type stuff. That's how this was found.

Nathan: 25:17

Right, because then it was like, oh, hey, cholesterol is like high and that was the first time I think ever your cholesterol had really been high. And then, given family history, it's like, oh, let's do a precautionary CT scan. And then, hey, your arteries are great. Hey, you have an aneurysm. And then we had a bunch of other tests. You kind of alluded to this earlier. There's a bunch of other procedures leading up to the main surgery that were done that validated that there were no other issues with your heart or arteries and things like that. So, yeah, it's been a ride.

Nathan: 25:57

Looking forward, what are you most looking forward to as you continue to heal?

Alicea: 26:03

What do I most look forward to? I'm not sure... Continuing with our life like we usually do, like, going on vacations and making memories and having fun, all that stuff.

Alicea: 26:15

One of my big questions that I am going to ask the doctor is am I still okay to go on roller coaster rides? It's very, very important to me.

Nathan: 26:26

Well, we'll ask him in a week. And of course we'll just say like not, obviously, not right now.

Alicea: 26:31

No, it won't be till June or so, but yeah.

Nathan: 26:34

Yeah, yeah, we'll get you up and going. Yep.

Nathan: 26:39

Do you have any advice for others who might be facing a similar surgery or recovery process?

Alicea: 26:48

Your mileage may vary.

Alicea: 26:51

Everybody's going to be extremely different in how their body handles stuff like this.

Alicea: 26:56

Find a support group, find people that love you and that will take care of you, and it's okay if you don't know stuff, ask. Don't be afraid to ask for help. That's, I think that's one of the hard things for us is asking for help like, uh, neither of us want to be burdens on people. Even if people want to help, we're like, okay, you may just have to force that because, yeah, it's just hard for us. There's resources out there, there's people out there. Use your community people out there.

Nathan: 27:23

Use your community.

Alicea: 27:26

Yeah, use your community.

Nathan: 27:28

Be open to using your community and letting everybody else help you too. Yep, that's important, that's important.

Nathan: 27:33

Well, that's a wrap on this little bonus episode. I do want to give a huge thanks to my amazing wife for sharing her story and reminding us all that recovery is not just about healing, but also about humor, love and a lot of patience, mostly with me.

Nathan: 27:54

If you enjoyed this episode, please do send some good vibes Alicea's way, and maybe a few snacks, because hospital food is officially behind us!

Nathan: 28:03

And and with that I'll forgo our usual outro, only to say that I'll be back in your ears... in just a day or two.

Nathan: 28:12

We've got renowned Disney beat reporter Scott Gustin on to recap all the news from the Big big Mouse mouse that came out from Destination D23 last week. Scott was a little under the weather after the convention, so we had to bump our recording while he got his voice back, but I am recording with him tomorrow as we record Today, as this comes out in the past. If you're listening to this after the day it dropped, you can figure it all out. Anyway, please stay tuned as we return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Nathan: 28:47

Bye-bye!

Nathan: 28:48

[Music: The end of You'll Be Back"

Nathan: 28:48

Everybody! Da, da, da, da da, da, da, da, da, da, da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da.