Sadly folks, I'm wasn't nearly yet out of the woods. My chest was finally closed and I was improving, very slowly. One complication of the VAD devices is that it can cause the blood to clot. They put you Coumadin, a blood thinning drug, to help prevent that, but unfortunately for me, I still developed clots. Even more unfortunately, several of these clots traveled to my brain and I in turn suffered several strokes. Two of these were termed as minor, but the third has been described as a "significant event". My post-transplant doctor, has described the CT scan of this stroke as "scary looking". I've been VERY lucky. As of today, I have no cognitive deficiencies. my balance and coordination seem fine, especially considering the amount of muscle mass I lost. On the other hand, tests have show that I've lost approximately 10 degrees of peripheral vision in both eyes. The neuro-opthamologist describes this as insignificant, so is essence I managed to survive a significant stroke almost zero side effects.
Also during this time, I lost circulation in my right leg. This caused my right foot to turn black. I don't know the details of this, but I do know that circulation returned. I'm still suffering after affects from this. To this day, my right foot suffered from numbness, pin-and-needles, burning, and pain. Wendy says that I likely have/had sigificant nerve damage in that foot and that nerves take a LONG time to heal.
Even more, that same leg got infected. The infection ended up being in the wound where they took a vein to try and do and the bypass. It took them a while to actually find it. Then of course I'm allergic to penecillin and it was apparently a battle find the right antibiotic. Luckily, one particularly good ICU nurse was able to find the source of the infection and I was able to get past it. Now comes the time of the sedation vacations.
2 comments:
the infection in your leg was scary! we didn't know what it was and nothing was working. it was one of the jennifers who found it and discovered what was making you sick, i think...it might have been another nurse though.
It was Brenda. Of course it was Brenda. She noticed that my leg was hot and in a moment of pure nastiness, she squeezed open the abscess. Though, again, I was not awake for that...
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