The Daily Dis

She's out of intensive care!

She's been moved to ward G100, on the tenth floor of G building. She's tired, and of course there's a good deal of pain that she has to deal with (and her docs and nurses are right on top of that); but her spirits are GREAT; and her attitude is even better.

She has a lot of hard work in front of her; but she's strong willed and brave.

As ever, thanks for ALL your prayers and well wishes.

My Nom de Plume

I understand that some may be offended by my pen name.

It was created for my blog, Fat Bastard's Rant.

Whose name is also offensive. And the positions held by the Fat Bastard will be considered offensive by some.

None of which has to do with Sharon or her health.

And so, if you're offended, I'm sorry.

And if you're not, traipse on over to the Rant, where you will be offended.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

ps: further updates later today.

The Daily Dish

As seen in these pages before, Sharon's surgery was a great success. She spent last night and today in the ICU; and was intubated until about 11 AM.
With just a little bit of practice she could talk again.

Her chest tubes were removed in the afternoon (outside visiting hours).

With that removal, the work of recovery begins. She has a small plastic device into which she has to blow (it indicates an air rate of flow to indicate how hard to blow out) ten times every hour. After that, she is to cough.

And I mean cough. As in, try to heave anything up that might be in your lungs (keeping the lungs clear is key).

Only problem is, it really hurts. But it has to be done.

Once she's been moved they'll have her walking around, blowing and coughing.

Hard work, but she's definitely up to the task.

The plan for now is that she will likely be moved to a nursing floor tomorrow; into a standard room. Contact John for telephone information to her room once she has it.

As ever, thanks to each and every one for your prayers and well wishes.

The Procedure is Done!!

Sharon spent a pretty restful night last night (Sunday); and was taken for the operating room at about 12:30 pm.

At approximately 6:00 pm I talked to the surgeon; everything went very well.

They replaced the mitral valve using a biological source; her valve was too damaged to repair (although they did try). They bypassed the two blocked arteries, and performed the Maze procedure to avoid future atrial fibrillation.

Nora and I were allowed to see her at about 8:30. She was still intubated; obviously groggy-- but through a shake of the head and a vigorous little nod she let us know she was in there.

Her nurse briefed us in; essentially all Shar's vitals were excellent-- she said that she wished all her patients did so well!

The nurse felt that if she continued to progress in this way she would probably be in a normal nursing ward tomorrow (Tuesday) afternoon.

As always, thank you for your thoughts and prayers.

Better data... but not such good news

I had my first chance to find out about the test results of Sharon's catheterization.

I got the info that I posted before from Sharon; and well... she was mistaken. (full disclosure-- if I'd been as high on anything as she was after that procedure, I might have said green was blue...)

They identified two arteries with over 70% blockage; so she'll be getting the bypass as well as the valve repair.

I will hopefully update this again tomorrow (Sunday June 24) night; depending on how she feels that evening. There's nowhere on the campus to access the Internet so I can't do it from there (someday I'm going off on a rant about corporate groupthink and network access), and Sharon's thinking that she'd like for me to stay there overnight with her. If that's the case, I don't know if I'll be able to update until after the surgery is complete and she's back safely in intensive care.

Forgive me for not being very accessible; the hospital has rules against cell phone usage, so it's usually turned off.

As ever, thank you all for your prayers, love and support.

JJ

"Previously, on 'Heart of Sharon'..."

I reproduce here the first two emails that went out with update info:

First, Tuesday, June 21:

Monday Sharon was taken to hospital emergency room and was found to be in full congestive heart failure.

The ER docs got her stabilized; got her heart rate down. She was found to have atrial fibrillation which had led to the congestive heart failure condition.

After she was stabilised, she was transferred to the Cleveland Clinic cardiac intensive care unit. (For those of you who don’t know about it, it’s the world’s number one rated heart facility. The King of Saudi Arabia used to fly to Cleveland to come here. If it was good enough for him, it may just be good enough for my girl.)

Ultrasound exam of her heart revealed that her atrial valve was not closing properly, and that had lead to the atrial fibrillation.

On Tuesday they examined her heart with a fiber-optic device to check for any blood clots that may have formed while the heart was not pumping correctly. After verifying that there weren’t any, they “shocked” her heart with a defibrillator—she went into a really beautiful sinus rhythm.

Today she was released from the cardiac intensive care unit and moved to a regular room (actually, a bloody corner suite on the 9th floor- I think she’s got someone buffaloed :D .

The plan is for her heart to be catheterized tomorrow (Thursday). They’ll be looking for coronary artery blockages.

At this point we expect her to have open-heart surgery on either Friday the 23 or Monday 26th. During that surgery they will repair the valve (there are two techniques, but I’m just way too tired to remember all that right now); and if they find any blockages during the catheterization they will also perform bypass surgery—sort of “as long as the hood’s open, might as well take care of everything.”

She’s in good spirits; she’s cracking jokes with the nurses and otherwise being a very brave girl. I’m so proud of her I can hardly stand it.

She sends her love to all; and we ask for your prayers and well wishes.

Then Thursday, June 22:

Sharon was catheterized this afternoon about 2:30. They found very little blockage, well below the level that would require any kind of surgical treatment. Thus, there’s no need for any bypasses to be done while she’s under.

She’s slotted in as procedure number 2 in the particular operating room she’s assigned to at this point, but they don’t have a hard-and-fast scheduling for these things. It depends on how long Number 1 in that room goes; or if there’s a cancellation in any one of the other nine operating rooms she might get slotted earlier.

I’ve been told to expect her to go up anytime between about 10am and 2 pm.

The entire period from when she leaves her room ‘til she’s in intensive care should be from five to seven hours. We can expect her to remain in intensive care from 24 to 48 hours (most patients are back in regular rooms in 24); and to remain in the hospital for another three days.

She’s still in good spirits; definitely concerned but she has all the right drugs to keep her anxiety at bay. The poor girl has generalized anxiety; and OPEN HEART SURGERY (oh my god!!!) has always been the One Biggest Baddest Monster in my baby’s anxiety closet.

Still, she’s soldiering on; ALL the signs look VERY good—you guys obviously have an in with The Big Boss!

So, thank you all for your prayers and wellwishes, and soon she’ll be writing to you herself.

And, once again, I thank you all for your prayers and good wishes.

The Daily Brief

For those of you for whom an update hasn't been sent--

At last update Shar was scheduled for open heart surgery on Friday (yesterday), but due to scheduling conflicts (someone needed that operating room and team more desperately than our girl did at that moment) she was bumped to Monday.

Hers is not an emergency case, and so she could get bumped again, but we expect her to go in around mid-day on Monday.

As briefer, I offer my apologies for not having updated everyone before now.

At this point she remains in good spirits; she's enjoying her 9th floor corner suite (if you're interested in sending flowers or cards or whatever, she's in the G-91 section at the Cleveland Clinic Heart Center).

This blog will be updated periodically as time goes on; I'll try to keep it up to date as she goes into surgery as well.

JJ