I
celebrated my ninth month of the success of my aorta valve replacement
operation and, at the same time, it has now been nine months since I
have had a cigarette after 60 years of smoking 2-3 packs a day. I am
really surprised at how I DON'T miss it!

This has been frustrating month with more problems that I didn't expect. Would they have happened even without the operation? I don't know.

Sleep
has become a problem again. I didn't sleep a wink for 3 nights out of
the last 10 and only got about 2-3 hours sleep another 3 nights.
Unfortunately I am back on lorazepam tranquillizers which I had stopped for a few weeks.

I
am having problems with my warfarin (blood thinner) level with it being
so high I had to stop taking it this weekend and will have to go to my
primary tomorrow to have it checked again and the dosage adjusted.

I
did get caught by surprise with a breathing problem. This has been
going on for at least 6 weeks. A couple of times I have lifted the
phone to dial 911 but didn't. I wake up in the middle of the night
startled. I cab be sitting, doing nothing, and all of a sudden I am
either short of breath or breathing heavily.

I got to see a pulmonary doctor this past Monday. I was very impressed by the time he spent with me,
the questions he asked, the way he listened to me. The bottom line was
that he prescribed an inhaler, Spiriva, that I would take once a day.
He said I would probably have to take it the rest of my life. He, also,
diagnosed me with C.P.O.D., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

I
have now been using the inhaler for 6 days and so far I don't see any
change. I don't know if it is suppose to 'kick in' right away or takes
a week or two. I plan to call him tomorrow and ask him just that.

Regarding
sleep he did suggest that I don't take naps. I explained to him that
even if I wanted to I didn't seem capable of laying down during the
day. One of my problems of trying to get to sleep is that no matter
whether it be a bed, couch, chair or whatever I panic when I put my
head down. I did buy a recliner hoping that would help and it seems to,
a little bit.

He also said that I
should use the bedroom ONLY to sleep--no reading, no eating, no sex
(now that was an interesting part of the conversation!) or anything
else.

In May I will have to face the decision about the operations on my legs to relieve the perifial artery disease.

I will say that now, 9 months later, I feel okay 50% of the time which is an improvement and hopefully that percentage will keep on going up.