I haven't posted anything for a very long time. My youngest son has been in the hospital, most of that time in an Intensive Care Unit for the past 10 weeks, and things have been rather chaotic here.
He has a weak heart and was retaining fluid, and on the 6th of October, he went to the Emergency Room at his local hospital, and they transferred him to Regions Hospital in St. Paul to the cardiac unit.
Over the next few days they discovered that he had a very fast heartbeat and they were able to slow it down with his implanted defibrillator/pacemaker. The cardiologists decided to do an angiogram and a heart ablation to interrupt the part of his heart that was creating the problem.
On the day of the procedures, they couldn't do the angiogram because his liver numbers were too high, and when they went on to the ablation, within seconds he went into cardiac arrest. After mechanical cpr for 15 minutes, they thought there wasn't anything else they could do. Then they decided to use an Impella, an external heart pump new to their hospital, in an attempt to see what would happen. It was also the first time the Impella had been to the Intensive Care Unit, so the entire staff was educated on the use of the Impella. There were people in and out of his room all the time, but the medical staff had little time to tell us what was happening (and I don't think they quite knew what to expect.)
The Impella worked for several days, but he also had kidney failure probably due to the Impella and it was also affecting his liver and he was extremely jaundiced. The cardiologist the last day he was in Regions told us they didn't know what else they could do, so he was going to call the University of Minnesota Hospital to see if they would take him. Within an hour, we were told that the cardiologists had looked at his chart, they had a bed for him, and he would be transferred later that day. No more tests were to be run at Regions, the U wanted to do their own testing.
That evening, they loaded his dialysis machine, his ventilator, his Impella, his nurse, and him into an ambulance and took him to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at the U of M Hospital on campus. We followed, and they began telling us what they planned to do.
After testing, they were going to remove the Impella and send that back to Regions, and they were going to do open heart surgery and implant an Lvad (Left Ventricle Assist Device), an implanted heart pump and they were going to do this on Friday. He was in critical condition and we were to be "cautiously optimistic." He made it through surgery. Unfortunately he had also been given blood thinning medication at Regions, so they weren't able to close up the incision until the following Monday. Which they did, and he tolerated all of this well.
Later this same week we were told that his Aortic Valve wasn't functioning well, so they were going to do another open heart surgery and replace this with a pig valve. We were again told that he was in critical condition and that we should be cautiously optimistic. He survived this.
A few days later, he developed both an infection but they didn't know where, and then pneumonia. To make a very long story short -- he remained in Intensive Care Unit, with 12 doctors, a 24 hours a day nurse, and by the time we came to the week before Thanksgiving, we were told that he was now stable but we should continue to be cautiously optimistic. I think that's when we were told he was no longer critical, but still very ill. He continued making progress, getting rid of the breathing tube, going to shorter dialysis, he was no longer a deep yellow color, he was making progress.
Sometime at the beginning of December, he was moved from the ICU at the U of M to Bethesda Rehab Hospital. Things went out of control and nobody knows why, but he ended up the next day back in the ICU at the U of M, and remained there for a few days -- when they moved him up two floors to a regular ward, and he was able to walk 25 steps with a walker. He was there for about two days, and suddenly they were finding it difficult to wake him up.
So they transferred him back to the Intensive Care Unit where he still is today. On Tuesday, he was having all kinds of problems caused they thought from the Co2 in his blood. Something wasn't working correctly. He woke up with 4 doctors in the room, 3 nurses, a couple of technicians, an echocardiogram machine in his room, his mother and his wife. He looked terrified!
And they put him back on the ventilator and continuous dialysis -- that was Tuesday. Today is Saturday and he is no longer on the ventilator all the time, and they are talking about sending him back up to the 6th floor tomorrow.
He was the sickest of any of the patients they have treated in this manner, and most of their patients are in the Cardiac ICU for 3 to 5 days. He has been there for 9 weeks. They don't know what to expect or what problems they might run into. The U of M is one of two places who do Lvad surgery in Minnesota -- the other is Mayo Clinic in Rochester. He was in the right place at the right time, with doctors who decided to try to do what they could for him. They have been an incredible medical staff, working very hard to first keep him alive, and next to give him back quality of life. Hopefully they are also learning from this as well. Once he gets through all of this, he will be put on the heart transplant list, or even a heart/kidney transplant list.
Today he is on a liquid diet -- his personal goal is to get to solid food within the next four days. Being a stubborn Swede, he is determined to have a traditional lutefisk dinner on Christmas Eve!
Riana was Swedish Lucia for him on December 13th; unfortunately, he was in dialysis when we got there, and only managed to eat half of a Saffron roll before we were told he could have NO food in the dialysis lab. We were able to leave him several saffron rolls in his room along with some Christmas cookies before we left.
Now he is hoping for lutefisk.
I cannot say enough good things about the entire University of Minnesota Cardiac Medical Team, surgeons, cardiologists, nurses, technicians, the entire team, the Lvad volunteer, the Cardiac chaplain -- all the people who have made all of this endurable for both my son, his family and his extended family!
I hope I have covered this with correct chronology, what has happened and when. If not, it's close and sometimes I wonder if I even remember who I am at times. Trying to get ready for Christmas -- I have sent out no Christmas cards this year. I have thought of each and every one of you, wishing I was closer to all of you to give and receive big Christmas hugs. So consider yourself hugged!
We all wish you a very Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year. Hoping you will be blessed in a spectacular way the way we have been blessed.
God is good!
