Day 12--Barbara

First, the good news. The EEG was not negative--he is still with us! How much with us is difficult to determine because of the strong sedatives that he requires, but he is here. More good news, he is back to his own heart rhythm and is off the pacemaker and most of the strong heart medications.

However, as always he has to be difficult--for the last 24 hours he has had irregular heart beats and his heart is racing, making it less efficient. The surgeon thinks that the VAD which is replacing the function of the right side of his heart is causing this. He has scheduled an OR for tomorrow afternoon and will move the VAD to a new location to see if this will help. After consulting with several individuals, he thinks that this may be the culprit. We have hit a brick wall in terms of progress and this is our next step. The doctor is hopeful that this will result in being able to close the chest soon--at least the skin--reducing the infection risk. He told me that Robin is in a much better place to move this VAD than he was when it was initially put in place. This is mostly due to the reduction of those heart meds.

I went back to work today--much harder to have a sub than to do it myself. It was a good distraction, and my students were great! Went directly from school to the hospital and, even with the freeway incident, I didn't have much traffic either way. Gary Joe (cousin-in-law) stopped by breifly to check in with Kitty and I at the hospital and caught us in a euphoric moment--had just had good news from the doctor.

Thank you to all of you who are sharing this rollercoaster ride with us! We are at least feeling more hopeful today--keep those prayers and thoughts coming--we need them all!