The story so far...what I missed pt. 4

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.