Entourage

I called the nurse to get an update on Tim around 7 or so, and the nurse said that he had a rough patch in the night (the irregular rhythm), but he was stable. I really felt the strong need to see my husband, I really wanted to see him, but what is a mom to do with 3 small children and the main babysitter hanging out on a beach in Mexico. Tim's parents called around 9:30/10, and said they were going to see Tim. The call waiting clicked on and I thought I probably better answer.


On the other line was the surgeon who performed Tim's surgery, he stated that Tim's heart was not beating well enough for his body and the Tandem heart that they had in was really only for an assistive/emergency purpose, and Tim's heart really needed a better pump. The surgeon felt he needed to be transferred to Denver to the University of Colorado Hospital. He had worked with the surgeons up there before and felt they were better prepared to handle Tim's needs. I clicked back over to Tim's parents and let them know, and then the surgeon called again saying I needed to go down to the hospital to sign consent. I quickly called my aunt, and she said she would take my 3 munchkins. So I raced over to her house, and then to the hospital. I was met in the waiting room by Tim's parents and we all went to see Tim. It was hard to see him, because they had to pump him full of fluid, so he was very swollen, almost to the point where he looked like he should be on the Biggest Loser. There were 4 or 5 big machines around his bed filled with tons of bags (mostly medicine of some sort). The critical care nurse and the PA told us that he was on very high doses of meds to help his heart, and they had the Tandem heart at the highest setting. The Tandem heart would only go up to 4 L/min, but his body was requiring more fluid than that, so that was one of the main reasons he needed to be transferred to Denver. The nurse told us that Tim would be either flown to Denver by helicopter or plane, but we had to wait until a bed opened up in Denver. He stated it would be around 2 or 3 in the afternoon, before Tim went up there.



I went to my aunt's house to feed Dekker and put him down for a nap, then I raced home to pack for myself, 10 month old baby and my other 2 children. I wasn't sure where I was staying or for how long, but at least I knew my aunt was willing to watch my oldest 2. It took me a long time to get everything ready, but in the meantime, I felt a great sense of love as my friends started calling offering their love and help. As I was getting everything ready the critical care nurse called and said the Flight for Life team was there getting Tim ready for transport, but they were having to take him by ambulance instead. The nurse said it would take a while for them to get Tim situated and up to Denver, so they thought he would be there around 4 or so. My aunt felt I should not drive myself up to Denver, so my cousin Morgan was sweet enough to drive me and Dekker up to the hospital. We arrived at the hospital, and Tim's parents had just arrived as well. They had seen the ambulance that brought Tim. We proceeded up to the Surgical ICU where we waited to see the heart surgeon. They got Tim situated in the room, and Dr. Cleveland came out with another surgeon and an anesthesiologist. The doctors explained that they needed to put an LVAD, which assists the heart in pumping, and possibly an RVAD, depending on how the right side of his heart was doing. If they did not do this procedure, they said that Tim would die. FABULOUS. I was able to see Tim for a few minutes before they took Tim into the OR, and a lot of the OR staff came and introduced themselves and said they would be taking good care of Tim. It was very sweet to see the care that these people were providing. They took him back, and we proceeded to wait another 3 hours. At 9, I felt a sense of urgency to pray, and I kept reciting Psalm 29:11 "God gives strength to his people, God blesses his people with peace". Not sure what may or may not have happened at 9, but later I found out that Tim's brother and sister-in-law felt the same urgency to pray too. A little after 9:20, they wheeled Tim out of the OR, and he had at least 10-15 OR staff come out with him and all his equipment. It was a little scary to see him requiring all those people and machines.



At 9:30, the surgeon came out and said that they did have to put in "pumps" on both sides of his heart. The left side was not pumping at all, and the right side was not pumping well because of the left side. Due to all this, Tim's body did not get adequate blood flow to his kidneys, liver, skin and brain. Tim had to be on dialysis to help his kidneys. They said we would have to wait and see how he recovered to see about his brain. They said I could go back to see him in a few minutes, so around 10 or so, I was allowed in the room. After spraying hand sanitizer all over my face in front of like 5 nurses and a couple doctors, I was able to go into the room. The head nurse told me that they were having some problems with his blood pressure. It was too low, but they had him on a lot of medicines. Still like two racks full of IV bags, the pumps, the dialysis machine and a ventilator. The nurse told me he would call me in the night if there were any problems, but he operated on the system that no news was good news. I proceeded to go with Dekker and stay with my cousin Stephanie at her house. Her and her husband were very gracious and opened their house to me and my baby. I went to sleep around 11:30, and no one called from the ICU, so Tim was stable.

Today I was thankful for family and technology, especially Facebook, texting and medical technology.

The Psalm for this day was Psalm 29, and my favorite verse was what I quoted above.

A couple more hours

So it all began, as Tim was wheeled into surgery to repair his aorta around an old graft from a previous surgery. (See history)

He was supposed to get his aorta repaired with synthetic material from where the aorta attaches to the heart through the arch (see attached picture that Tim actually drew) and most likely get a mechanical valve. We were told the surgery would probably last about 7-8 hours.

Tim was wheeled back a little after 7:30 and I left to go take care of the baby. My lovely cousin was willing to drive all the way down from Denver and take care of him. I stayed for an hour or so, and I got back to the hospital around 10. I called the OR room and they said they had just started cutting through the old scar tissue down to the aorta. He was on bypass, most likely, at this point. The OR nurse said she would call in a couple hours and let us know how everything was doing.

12:30 - The nurse called and said everything seemed to be going fine and Tim was doing well. She said she would call in a couple more hours or so and let us know how things were. I went for lunch and came back.

2:30 - The nurse called saying it would be a couple more hours, but things were going well and Tim was doing fine.

4:30 - The nurse called and said it was going to be a couple more hours, it was taking a little longer than they thought but they would call again in a couple more hours. Tim was doing well still, though. We (Tim's parents, my aunt and I) decided to take a break and go get dinner but we would come back around 6:30/7.

6:15 - I was on my way back to the hospital when I got a call from the OR nurse. She said there were some problems and the heart wasn't beating as well as they wanted, so they placed a temporary device to help the heart beat. They said that it would take a couple more hours.

8:45 - The surgeon came out. So after 13 hours, the surgeon came out and explained that the repair of the aorta went fine, and he was actually able to save the aortic valve. The surgeon kept the coronary arteries (which supply the heart with blood), and after they took Tim off of bypass, the left side of his heart, which supplies blood to the entire body, wasn't beating well at all. They had to basically do a coronary artery bypass surgery, where they take veins from other parts of his body to replace the coronary arteries. So they took a portion of vein from his right leg and somewhere else to help supply the heart. The left ventricle still was not beating as well as they would like, so they put in a temporary heart pump. It's called a Tandem heart. This is supposed to be a temporary assistive device to help the heart pump and hopefully recover enough to beat on its own. The surgeon said he had no idea why the left ventricle stopped working, and he thought they would never know. He said Tim was getting ready in the critical care unit and that I probably would be able to see him in 30 minutes.

9:30 - We waited for 30 minutes, and I checked with critical care and they were still getting him situated. I left, because I had to go home for the baby, but the critical care unit would call with any updates.

11 - The critical care nurse called and left a message on my cell.

11:30 - I called the nurse back who said Tim had some irregular rhythms with his heart and that is why it took so long to get him situated in the critical care. They had to shock him but he was stable now.

Today I was thankful for caffeine, People magazine, family and friends.

Psalm of the day - Psalm 28
Applicable verses verse 7 - "The Lord is my strength and my shield; my heart trusts in him, and I am helped. My heart leaps for joy and I will give thanks to him in song."

History

Tim had an aortic dissection on May 16, 2003, where he proceeded to have emergency surgery to repair his aorta. A portion of his aorta was taken out and synthetic material replaced that section. After the surgery, he had to take blood pressure meds, and get annual checkups.

At his last check up in January, the doctor sent him to get a CT scan, because it had been a while since his last one. When the CT scan came back, it showed some swelling around the old graft site. Basically, Tim had an aneurysm around both sides of the graft, and they thought it was affecting his aortic heart valve causing it to leak. The cardiothoracic surgeon felt that it would be better to have surgery sooner than later. They scheduled him to have surgery on April 14th, 2010.

The weekend before April 14th, Tim developed a sinus infection. He thought he might get better, so we didn't do anything about it. But on April 13th, the surgeon's office called and said an emergency came up and they wouldn't be able to do his surgery until April 28th. So now we just had to wait.

Also, during the month of April Tim felt it would be nice to go through the Psalms as his devotions, so he had been doing one Psalm for each day of the month.