above left Saying Goodbye to my Wounded Warrior Heart. "To My Heart, June 15th, 2004, You have worked very hard for me. You've been strong and brave, patient and steadfast. However the time for you to honorably retire is near. I love you very much. We've been through a lot. I thank you for the good times. From Grant Searcey"

above right "I look forward to meeting you." I drew the heart I wanted and the next day it found me.

 

Healing Light, resonates around my scarred veins and heals the fibers to rebuild and connect tissues throughout my body.

 

 

Day 28 UCLA Life, (4thday post-op) "There's a full moon tonight so I might have been awake anyway. Having a bloody tube drain from my body, a telemetry heart monitor, various burning I.V.s, beeping alarms from neighbors all around. I slept from Midnight to 1:30 a.m. then the noise began, I lay in my bed as my roomate forcefully slid to the comode, breathed heavily and was carried back to bed. At this point a respitory therapist sucked mucus from his lungs. It is now 5:00 a.m. Considering the circumstances, I feel I'm healing quite nicely. X-ray at 4:00 a.m. and a blood draw at 5:30 a.m."

 

Determined and Brave Fish, Post-op day 4

Hook is the disease, the fish is me. I came close, but the disease didn't get me.

Drawing in the Botanical Gardens 10 days after receiving the gift of life. I felt enlightened to say the least.

"The many moods of Prednisone"

1. Chilled out, things looking good.

2. Raging monster that wants to kill everything with a pulse.

3. Very very depressed and down.

4. Super pumped up! I can do anything! Life is good!

5. Scared to death. Full of worry and paranoia.

Day 2 of 31 in the hospital. I'm already teathered to "the system" and distressed.

Scared Fish in a confusing sea of emotion. Several days pre-op. Nervous unclarity dominated.

Above is a collaboration between my wife Mindy and I. We are making a statement about how absolutely ridiculous this process is. I take pills to deal with the side-effects of pills and on and on and on. I've got 11 scars to tell my story and I go through more pill bottles than some small pharmacies.

Anger and Rage...

Worst Fears. Paranoia. Walking around L.A. with a mask on. Swollen face and people staring. Pale face. Some guy on the street was afraid to be near me. He had told a nearby security guard that I must have some contagious disease and that he didn't think it was safe for him to get into my airspace. The truth is I am protecting myself from his germs. I felt like ashamed and wanted to hide.

People on the Phone, blah blah blah.

Los Angeles Traffic. The writing on the people, signs and cars sarcastically reads: " Full Parking, Go back Home, Move it, No Relaxing Zone, Fender Bender 2 miles ahead, Lextra Shine, Hum Dumb, Honking, Moan, Complain, Talks a lot, Go!, Hurry, Call Today 1800-Bla-Blah, Mountain Lion (instead of Jaguar), C'mon. Smart people get to the red lights first, Please try to remain as tense as possible. Tailgating is polite, Make sure you get your fair share of the road."

Self portrai

One month out and I'm stuck in bed again during recovery from first angiogram.

Most of the nurses and caretakers at the hospital were absolutley amazing people. They made such a positive impact on my recovery. However, I did have one particular nurse that was completely clueless and had no bedside manner at all. I made this drawing sometime during her 12 hour shift to construcively take out my anger in a less damaging way than yelling at her.

It reads: "It is humiliating being sick, don't make me confess my shortcomings over and over." "I'll tell you what I want, you tell me what I need." "Are you listening? Do I have a voice?" "Read my chart, don't make me explain everything." Do your job, do your homework."

 

 

July 7th, 2004 Leaving the hospital with a new heart!