What a difference a year can make: Last year this time I was admtted into the Sentara Heart Hotel after my routine two week checkup detected a problem with my LVAD (heart assisting pump) that I had just for one and a half years. My wife and I were told I needed a second open heart surgery to replace that pump which was causing serious internal issues that was life threatening! So on December 23rd I was rolled into the operating room to replace my malfunctioning heart pump with a new pump. During that surgery I had tear in my Aorta while the surgeons were connecting the new pump and I needed multiple pints of blood to replace what was lost while reparing the tear. It was touch and go for a while. I woke up from ICU on Christmas Day not knowing I had gone through another life threatening event. The first persons I saw were my wife Benee, my daughter Jamie and her mother Mary and what a relief it was to be in the land of the living! The Lord was my Savior! The next few days the doctors were talking about maybe having to open me up again because the new pump wasnt positioned correctly or operating at full strength. The final decision by the doctors was to push me up to the top of the heart transplant list and I would remain hospitalized until a perfectly matched heart became available and its one of those things that could happen soon or much later. After I processed that information I was hit with the news the my thyroid, which was being treated with medications, needed to be removed because the meds werent working and if they remained they would affect any future heart surgery. I remember thinking what next but I had strong belief in God, a positive atittude towards life and faith that the doctors were working in my best interest. I had that surgery on January 16th to remove my thyroid and the very next night I had to have emergency surgery in my hospital room on my bed for complications from that procedure. After a few weeks of pain trying to eat I started my wait for a heart transplant. The visits, phone calls, cards, e-mails and facebooks conversations with family and friends kept my spirits up for five months. The Have A Heart For James fundraiser sponsored by my Civic League will be an event in my life I will never forget and an inspiration for me to do for others. One day the doctors came in and informed me that I had improved enough, which was unusual, to go home but I still needed a heart transplant and needed to have regular appointments at the Heart Hotel and monitor my weight and vital signs daily and always be prepared for The Call! Some days I feel great but there are some days its hard to get out of bed. I know people see me now and wonder how can I be walking around and doing relatively normal things after going through those surgeries and still needing a new heart, sometimes I wonder as well! I cant explain how God works but I do know He has a plan for us all and these are the steps Hes ordered for me! A year later my journey continues!!! I wish you all good health!
Posted on: Wed, 17 Dec 2014 11:37:30 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015