Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Out of the hospital

David called me around 9pm last night to tell me he was back in his room and had been discharged. He sees the cardiologist at 1pm today and I am anxious to hear what he has to say to him. He sounded good last night and in good spirits. Doug will arrive tomorrow night and we will get up early and head to San Diego on Friday morning to spend the weekend with him. Please pray for all of our hearts and for the Lord to be present because we are going to have a serious talk with our son...

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Big sigh...

Apparently David is supposed to be discharged today from the hospital, but as of 7pm he still hadn't been... his white count and other blood tests were elevating at a good pace so they feel comfortable letting him go back to his room with some conditions. They are still running tests and waiting for test results for what could have dropped his white count and other items, but we have not gotten those results back yet. It could have been something to do with his medicines as well so they have messed with those and have lowered and changed some of the medications around.

Doug gets to my mom's house on Thursday night and we will all leave again on Friday morning to be down in San Diego with him this weekend. Doug wants to meet and talk to some of the staff down there and we all want to sit down with David and have a serious talk with him about his future and managing his care from now on. It is imperative that he gets a handle on it and stops fighting the changes that this new heart has brought to him. I know through God's grace it will happen, he has an awesome support system around him to help him and guide him.

Monday, July 20, 2009

July 20th, 2009

David will be in the hospital for a few more days... his white count went up last night but then in went way back down this afternoon. Stanford and the Navy hospital just does not feel comfortable with him leaving the hospital until the white count gets under control or until they have some answers. There are a lot of things that it could be and they aren't ruling out anything at this time. In some ways it feels like we are back to square one but on the upside he does have that awesome heart on his side this time.

I am hoping this will be a humbling experience for him as he sits there by himself in that hospital room. He has taken a lot for granted these past few months and I am hoping this is the reality check that he has so desperately needed. It is killing me not being by his side right now, and I will probably go down there by weeks end, but I also strongly feel that he needs to fight this fight in a different way this time. He knows that I am there to support him in any way that he needs, but he is having to do this in a different way this time.

As always I will keep the blog going as we get new information....

We do have a phone number for him, but we have asked that only people call him that we give the number to. If you have taken it upon yourself to "look" him up and call him please don't. We are getting back into a situation were too many people are calling him.

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Back in the hospital....

I need to give you an update on David, I will do this in the best "time" frame that I know so you all are informed and know how to pray.

On Thursday at his appointment with the new doctor in San Diego David admitted to not feeling 100% earlier in the week, but he was feeling better at that time. The doctor said he wanted to run some basic blood tests so he could get a better feel of Davids condition and to see if there was anything going on because David had not been feeling well. When I say not feeling well it means he was light headed, dizzy, no appetite, lethargic, and just yucky feeling.

I saw David on Friday afternoon at noon and hugged him goodbye, we parted ways at that point. The Navy and Bonnie (Stanfords Nurse) called me at 2:30pm and told me that they needed to get a hold of David ASAP because they had just gotten the results of his blood work back and his white count had dropped significantly and to the point that they were very worried and wanted to run more tests. Apparently with his white count being that low he was at an extreme risk for infection.

Yesterday at 2pm they admitted David back into the hospital because overnight his blood count had once again dropped significantly and they were very worried about what could be going on and the fact that he could be at a high risk of exposure and infection. He is in an isolated room and I saw him finally last night at around 10pm. They are doing blood work continually and still do not have an answer. Yesterday they gave him a shot to fool his body into making white blood cells. This afternoon they did a chest xray and saw that he still has the spot on the lung that he has had since right after transplant. So because of that they also did a CT SCAN of his lungs to compare to the last one that they did at Stanford.

Once again my life is a waiting game, I came back to my moms today to wait this part out. Once we know what we are dealing with I will make some decisions from there. We really need prayers here, one for answers, and also David needs prayers so that he can start dealing with his condition in a more healthy way. He is in both denial and anger right now, and it is not healthy at all.

Friday, July 10, 2009

Going Home.....

Yesterday at 3:15pm we were given the final ok to go home.... I can hardly believe it.... I am totally stunned.... the day has finally arrived. Doug drove up last night after work to help us pack up the "homtel" and we should be leaving this afternoon to go home for good. It is very bittersweet. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY ready and excited to move back home, but a lot has happened to me and my family in this little town, this little homtel, and this little part of the world these past 7 months. That is a lot to finally walk away from. Saying goodbye to people like Bonnie yesterday and Paula were so hard on me. I know we will see Bonnie for our monthly visits but not having the security of her right down the road is a hard thing to let go of. And Paula, now that one was so hard for me personally, that woman sat by my side and held my hand during some of my darkest moments. She has been there since day one of this incredible journey and has seen it all with us. She has cried with us, laughed with us, and gotten mad with us. It was so incredibly hard to hug her yesterday and tell her goodbye, so I know that she reads the blog everyday.... So I am blowing you kisses Paula, you have no idea how much you have meant to me and my boy.

I laid awake until 4am last night replaying all of the events that have happened to us in these last 7 months and was once again shocked. I still have a hard time comprehending that David had a heart transplant, or that he was as sick as he was. I started thinking about the first phone call, the time in Hawaii, our first days in Stanford, his little boy laughs when he was trying to keep himself amused in the hospital, his weak and frail body, the day of the Jarvik surgery, the ICU stay, and most of all the day we got the call and the time we spent waiting for him during the heart transplant surgery. I started thinking about all the people we have met in person as well as over the Internet that have made this journey possible to handle. I am still dumbfounded of the overwhelming support we have gotten and the help and love we have received. It has proven to me that the majority of people in this world are good and loving, it has restored my faith in Americans and what we stand for.

Some people have told me that they are afraid that I have lost my identity through this whole process, and at first I was scared that could be very true. But then I really started thinking about it and I think that is incredibly wrong. I really believe that I have learned more about myself and who I am through this then I ever did before. I have regained such a strength in our powerful God, and I have learned that with him nothing is impossible. With that behind me I can do anything in this world and not be afraid. I strongly know that I am a better Christian, Wife, and most importantly Mother because of all this. I have gained confidence, self control, over whelming love, and peace. I have not lost my identity I believe that I have found it through this... it makes me shudder to think that might be one of the reasons why we went through this.

Many people have been irritated with me because a lot of the time I don't write about Dave in depth on these blogs... well I have news for you... this journey didn't just involve David. It involved his dad, me, and most importantly his little brother and sister. We all went through this with him and were affected by it, not just him. This journey threw our lives upside down these last 7 months, and I am a proud mama to sit here and say we survived it. Lots of marriages and families don't survive it, but we have Christ in our corner and that is why we did. Yes, this thing happened to David physically but the aftershocks reached out to the whole family... please bear that in mind.

On that note, David is doing really well. I have full confidence that he will handle this on his own and that he will manage his health care in a way that he knows he needs to. That being said, I also know that because he is 20 he will stumble and he will fall, but who hasn't. The reality of it is when he stumbles and falls it might be enough of a fall to make him sick again, but that is on David and how he wants to handle it. He still has high blood pressure and is now on an Ace Inhibitor as well as all of the blood pressure medicine and he still has high blood sugar so he is checking his sugar levels 4x a day and on a high dose of medicine for that. BUT, in our last clinic visit we got him off of 4 meds and rearranged his schedule so he is only taking meds 2x a day instead of 4. This was very good news and will make things a little bit easier for him to handle when he leaves here.

He has to report to San Diego on July 15th, I will be taking him down there, going to his first appt with him, and helping him get settled, then I will leave. Won't blog about how hard that will be right now.... They are telling us he will only have to be in San Diego for about 30 days, so we are praying that is true. He is anxious to come home and start a life again. We are going to do every thing in our power to add on to our house so that he has a little privacy and a place of his own to go too, so we ask for prayers in that regard. That it can be done swiftly, nicely, and with volunteer help and donations. Right now Dave plans on starting Junior College and wants to be a Radiology Technician.....

My son was dying 7 months ago.... I know without a doubt that his days on this earth were numbered. I also know without a doubt that my GREAT BIG GOD saved him, that the power of Prayer saved him, and the amount of people that loved him saved him. God chose David to save, that is almost to big for me to handle sometimes. I know it is too big for Dave to handle. There is something big in store for my boy... I just know it..... I love him so very much, my heart aches with love for him. Every single day I look at him and I am filled with love and I am reminded how close I came to losing him and it makes me want to hold him tight and never let go. Thank you.... all of you who prayed for us, held our hands in waiting rooms, hugged us, loved us, supported us in so many ways, and thank you Jesus for saving my boy.....