In my last post I mentioned our "foster" aunt, Cindy. We've been having a lot of fun with her over the past month. She keeps me company during the day while the kids are at school and she has inadvertently taught me how to drive on busy interstates without having a heart attack. I tend to have a driving phobia, probably because I never had to do it, but taking her to doctor appointments once a week for the last month... well I think I am doing a bit better with the whole interstate thing.
Cindy, arrived at our house a little over a month ago. The goal was that she needed to be within a 2 hour drive to the hospital so that she could get a heart transplant on short notice. The doctors weren't sure how long it would take. Some people wait on lists over two or more years. Some people unfortunately don't get hearts before they pass on.
In Utah right now there are around 30 people waiting on the list for a heart transplant. I thought that didn't sound too bad considering the population of Utah, but there aren't a whole lot of organs to go around, so I guess it is good that the list is relatively short.
The day Cindy got her pager, she thought it went off. Remember her phobia of beeping? She practically took the thing apart, before I got home, trying to figure out what was wrong with it. We decided that she must have heard the microwave beep. The pagers batteries seemed fully charged and it didn't have recollection of a page. But it did get her thinking about what if it happened soon, and she admitted that she wasn't quite ready for it yet.
The doctors said that Cindy had a few good things going for her. She was small, which opened her up to more opportunity. A lot of heart transplant patients tend to be a tad bit heavy, which means small hearts can be put into them. Also she was hooked up to an IV continuously, which was supplying her with medicine that she couldn't really live without. That moved her up to a 1B status.
On the down side her blood type was O. That means she is a universal donor. She can give to anyone, but she can only have O. This is bad because if there is an A or B they can have O or their blood type, but Cindy can only have O. It usually means a tad bit longer of a wait.
We thought it would be a while, at least six months, before she would be getting a call. But on Tuesday night they called and said they were on their way to check out a heart and they would be calling her back shortly if it all looked good. She waited up for a while, but finally fell asleep around 12:30. At 2:30 she got the call that it was good to go and had an hour to get to the hospital.
On our way we talked about how wonderful it was that there were no other cars on the road. 3:00 in the morning is now my most favorite time to drive. ;-) Cindy was a tad bit in shock and disbelief. Things were happening a lot faster than any of us thought they would.
She spent the morning being prepared for surgery. It was all fun and games. We spent some time jumping on the hospital bed and ripping gloves out of the wall to blow up into balloons (j/k, but that what my siblings and I use to do after my mom had babies...we'd always get in trouble). It actually went more like "Cindy, we have to put a IV in you for this..." then Cindy would whine and fight about it for a minute. Then the doctor would come in and tell her it was necessary. Then Cindy would whine more about it, but let them do it. They came in and put an ART line in. I learned what an ART line was (a line directly into the artery) and I watched them do it... and I hope I never have to have one of those. Mostly just because even if I don't watch them do it to me I still know whats happening. I am sure an epidural looks much worse... but I didn't have to watch them do that when I got one.
I waited around in the hospital helping fill out papers and trying to keep Cindy company and helping her call her siblings until it was time to wheel her off to the operating table.
I then headed home. I was pretty awake until I got in the car to drive home. During the 2o minute car drive home I had to remind myself to keep my eyes open every five seconds. I crashed for a couple of hours while the kids were at school and then I got up and tried to function the rest of the day. It was my first day of school and I had a lab I had to go to.
Cindy's surgery took a little over four hours and so I was able to go and see her for a couple of minutes before I needed to be at school. She was, in my opinion, not conscience, but in the doctors opinion she was. She had so many machines hooked up to her you had to be careful where you stood as not to knock one over. More plastic was coming out of her body than I thought possible. I made sure she looked "comfortable"...yeah right... and took off for school.
After my short, "this is what chemistry lab is all about...don't get chemicals on any part of your body" lecture, I headed back home and then took another trip up to the hospital with Nate when he got home. By then Cindy was conscience, but wishing she wasn't. With the breathing tube in, and her flustered state, she was having a hard time communicating with the nurse. We watched the oodles of people walk in and out of her room for a couple of minutes and then Cindy spotted me in the corner with a piece of paper. She wanted it, and my pen. I gave it to her, but she just made a bunch of scribbles on it. After another few minutes of trying to communicate with others she frustratingly gave up, and Nate and I left.
Since then we have been back to the hospital a couple of different times. Cindy improves daily. She'll be coming home in a little over a week.
No comments:
Post a Comment