Rough Day

Today Started Out Bad, Got Worse...Then Greatly Improved!

The hallway which I now refer to as the War HALL Way!

Dad did not start the day off very good today at all :( His blood pressure this morning was only 60 indicating that he had not enough blood volume to create a good pressure. At this point in time before they even went in they were pretty confident he had a bleed. 

They ran a blood test around 8 and found out that his blood levels had dropped to critical levels and they had no choice than to give him a transfusion. They ended up giving him 2 units of blood!

So Dad is part Vampire and just needed his blood supply delivered via IV to satisfy his blood need :)

They wanted to do the transfusions before the endoscopy procedure to make sure his BP was ok and that he had enough of a blood volume. Unfortunately right before they were going to begin the procedure he went in to V-Tach and his defibrillator fired. The Doctors and nurses were all there, thank goodness. Dad asked them if they should postpone the surgery because he was afraid it would shock him again. They were confident that if they did not stop the bleed that it would continue to happen. 

The View Mom and I had while we played Scrabble on the iPad

Mom and I went down to get a bite to eat. We had no idea that Dad's defib had gone off and no one had called us so we assumed all was well. We ate and played Scrabble for over 2 and a half hours. It was taking a very long time. Mom went to check and they were surprised she was there. They kind of ushered her away and said they were just finishing up. We should have known at that point that something was a little off kilter. It wasn't until we got back to the room that Dad told us about the Defib firing!

The nurse in the hallway answered our questions and it turns out he had not one bleed...but 5!!! Each bleed took an endo clip to clamp off the bleeding! They also found all the blood he had been losing...in his stomach! The procedure started late and what was suppose to take maximum of an hour ended up being two and a half by the time they let Mom and I back in. When we got back to the room his color already looked better than it had in a while. They ran  his bloodwork STAT so we could know if his levels were improving...Well I am happy to say they have gone from a critical below 16 to 19.6 and rising :) This was fantastic news!

This is the screen we monitor Dad's LVAD with

The Pulse Index number ( 5.1 ) here on this monitor is how Mom and I monitor Dad's LVAD stats at home. The number is suppose to be 3.5 or above and the power should be between 4s and 7s. Well The last few days Dad's PI number had dropped as low as 1.9 and his power was increasing signifying a problem. Right away they knew it was some type of volume issue they just didn't know how severe it was until he got there and they ran all the tests.

So before I left tonight all was going well numbers were all improving and Dad was looking less like Casper The Friendly Ghost!

So in a nutshell he went from Casper, to Vampire and finally back to Dad. We are hoping to keep him at Dad for a very long time now. They have started him on another medication that should help protect the lining of the stomach and help prevent future bleeds. I guess this is a side effect of the pump and the pressure it causes. Also, blood is acidic itself so if it was pooling in his stomach it also irritates the stomach lining. Blood thinners and Asprin also aid in the erosion of the stomach lining. In all reality the odds are stacked against you that this is bound to happen. I just wish we were more aware of what was going on internally. 

It is very difficult to monitor his situation from home. Everything they told us to watch for was happening yet we were not called in for three days after the initial concerned phone calls to the doctors that Mom made. We simply drove ourselves crazy watching the numbers drop and then yesterday when he was so dizzy and felt so awful I thought we had waited too long to go back. Hind site is 20/20. If they had found this bleed when he was in a week ago we would have been on the up and up and he would have felt better for Christmas and this week.

Thanks everyone again for everything you have done or offered to do for us. We are so appreciative of everything you all have offered. Please keep the prayers and positive thoughts flowing. We still need your strength with us everyday.

Until Tomorrow,

Laurie