I do want to note that there are all sorts of little details I'm missing about what happened over these hours, days, weeks, and eventually months. Even when I finally came to, my memory of the first week or so is very fuzzy. As such, I apologize if I keep dropping bits of information that are out of chronological order, or refer to something that isn't directly related. Honestly, I went through so much that I don't remember, that its hard for me to wrap my head around, even today.
For example, one bit I forgot to mention - I coded in the Huntington ER. That's right, my heart stopped. I was dead. But not for long. Anyway, back at USC. Doctors had placed an RVAD to supplement the LVAd I already had. After transfer to USC yesterday, I had symptoms of cardiac tamponade (My cvp was in the 40's) - so they re-opened my incision to relieve pressure from what is essentially marked swelling of the heart and tissues which can occur after a heart attack.There were complications. When the time came to close my chest, the trauma of 2 open heart sugeries and everything else the swelling was so much so that it was not possible for the surgeons to close my chest. It had to remain open. This was approximately Aug 1st, my chest would not be closed until Aug 11. Thats right, my chest was open for 11 days. It was covered in plastic to prevent infection, and I was periodically washed out. During this time I had at least one scary episode where I bleed constantly for an entire weekend. Finally, my main surgeon and Dr. at the time, Dr. Cunningham, determined that there was a problem with the RVAD site. He corrected it and I began to recover.
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