Insanity

Last I wrote, my friend attended an awards ceremony with me since my husband was sick.  Little did we know that his "illness" was a symptom of Congestive Heart Failure (CHF).  He went into the hospital on 3/10 for some swelling and chest pressure/pain.  He came home 12 days later with an external defibrillator, a new diet, and the hope of healing.

It was a whirlwind that I'll never forget- and never fully remember.

Things seemed normal that Sunday night.  We had cleaned out the garage that day, and then got ready for bed.  He tossed and turned, and finally got up to go watch TV in his office.  Around 1:30am, he came in to tell me that he wasn't feeling right and was going to go to the ER.  I half-heartedly asked if he wanted us to come, knowing that he would want E to sleep.  I didn't fight him, rolled over, and went back to sleep.  Here are the text messages from that night:

Me, 3:46am: Update?
W, 4:48am: I am ok... doc thinks it's edema... too much water in my system... just need to take med to lower the fluid level.
W, 6:32am: Just running all the tests... there have been a lot of trauma patients this morning so I am waiting behind them... I should be home soon.
W, 6:58am: Nevermind. They want to do more cardiac tests.  They think I got a virus with my chest congestion and they want to do more tests.

I called him at that point, and he promised that he would be home in the afternoon.  Around 11:30am he mentioned that his heart was a "little large."  I freaked out.  I called his parents who were in Brazil to tell them what I knew, and I brought E to my dad's.  My husband didn't want me at the hospital since he said that nothing going on was a big deal and he would be on his way home before I got there.  Clearly those docs were excellent communicators, right?!  I cancelled my appointments, and sped to Lexington Medical Center.

Around 1pm, he lost pulses in his feet.  His legs turned completely white up to the knees.  He was in excruciating pain, and it took what felt like forever for anyone to worry.  Dr. Norton, the vascular surgeon, came to check on him.  He was excellent.  He was concerned about blood clots, but thought the chances were very low due to Wes' age.  Even still, they prepared Wes for radiology so that they could take a look.  What "take a look" means, I'm not sure.  Cameras?  I don't know.  It was around 5pm when they rolled him up to radiology.  The radiologist told me that it would take 20 minutes if there was nothing, and an hour if they found something.

Two hours later, while I was waiting by myself in an empty radiology ward, a nurse walked by and I asked what was going on.  He didn't know.  Some dear friends arrived with dinner for me, and my dad came with my laptop and car charger.  At that point, the radiologist came out to tell me that Wes' legs were full of clots and that they didn't know if they could save him.  His heart wasn't functioning the way it needed to be, and was spitting out clots.  There was a lot more to it, as you can imagine.  The medicine they had him on to break up the clots can cause a stroke, but a clot can cause a stroke if you don't take the medicine.  It was awful.  One of the very worst moments of my entire life.  I remember clearly saying through tears, "We have a three year old.  You just have to save him."

Wes made it through surgery and they rolled him up to the ICU.  Crazy things of all crazy things, his nurse had gone to our high school.  He had a new job and it was his last night at LMC, but it was so nice to have a friendly face in all this.  The nursing staff that took care of us was amazing.

Wes was on morphine while his body broke up the clots.  He had nerve damage in his feet from the clots for a few months, but it has since cleared up.  He was in and out of consciousness.  I was, thankfully, allowed to stay by his side.  My brother was in his third year of medical school, and my sister-in-law was a cardiac care nurse for 10 years, so we called both of them more than we should have!  My brother told me to write every single thing down.  Keep notes from all of the doctors.  Date them.  It was really good advice, though now I know that the cardiologist at LMC kept us mostly out of the loop. My sister-in-law knew how bad an ejection fraction of 20 was, but never told us.  I was blissfully ignorant to the danger that Wes was still in.

There's so much more, and these are just the highlights.  In August, Wes had a device implanted so that he could get rid of the external defibrillator.  Eating a very low sodium diet is getting more normal to us.  I don't wake up every morning and wait for Wes to stir to make sure he's alive.  There is a long road ahead, and he'll never be back to "normal," but God allowed me to witness miracle after miracle and I'm so thankful.