Changing Venues

Changing Venues ~ Fighting Daily with Heart Failure pt. 4

Dr.s have been drawing blood, checking monitors, checking pressures, making med changes, they have exhausted their resources. My heart function is at 8%, my heart rate is extremely high and they are not seeing any improvement. My heart is working double time but that can’t last. Soon, other organs will start to shut down. The cardiologist had to have a hard talk. He said,”There is nothing else that we can do here. I think you’ll need to go to another hospital and get an LVAD.” What’s that? A Left Ventricular Assist Device. It does the work for the heart. The hope is that my heart will rest and remodel. At that time, my heart muscle, has been working out so hard, like a bodybuilder, that it has grown into a huge muscle. After working so hard, it has grown tired and the built up heart muscle has turned flabby.

This whole week, my children, parents and in-laws visited and prayed. At the end of the week, the cardiologist said, “We are going to have to move you to another hospital, a hospital that has other resources.” Jon, my husband, asked, “If it were your wife, where would you take her?” He said, “I would take her to UVA.”

I was prepped to take the 2 hour ambulance ride. There were 4 EMT workers, life saving equipment, beeping monitors and me in a stretcher. I was feeling fine, watching Father of the Bride in the back of the ambulance. The workers were on edge asking how I was feeling. I don’t think I knew how serious this was.