up2in2

In one of my recent posts we discussed the issue of bovine tissue heart valves being used to replace defective and damaged valves in human hearts. Here is a picture of a bovine tissue valve after it has been prepared for insertion into a human heart. In the same post I showed a picture of the UCD Men's Rowing Team Varsity Eight... well the guy in the 'five-seat' (counting from the bow of the boat - that's the front for all of you unfamiliar with rowing backwards to get ahead), recently fell ill with an infection in the lining of his heart and recieved a bovine tissue valve replacement for his aortic valve (that's the valve between the heart itself and the main artery leaving the heart, the aorta) and a repair to the mitral valve between the left atrium and left ventrical.

Here's some diagrams to help all y'all out...
















OK... so now all y'all are on ur way (to sleep?) to being doctors; that's good. Meanwhile, back in Fresno, our hero (me) was in pretty bad shape. On Sunday the 3rd of September I started to have ventricular fibrillation. I was in heart failure and on the verge of cardiac arrest. On Monday I was given an angiogram to figure out what was up... on Tuesday I had open heart surgery to replace my aortic valve and repair the mitral valve.


Then things got interesting. I didn't wake up Tuesday after the surgery. In fact my health continued to decline. It turns out that not only did I have bacterial endocarditis (bacterial infection of the inside lining of the heart), I also was in septic shock and cardiogenic shock... there are good explanations of all these terms at http://medlineplus.gov , if you're interested.

Then things REALLY got interesting. I developed pnuemonia, my feet filled up with blood clots, and I had numerous cariac arrests (heart stopped). I was a mess... according to my heart surgeon, Dr. Peter Birnbaum, "you were tettering on the edge of death; you were on the verge of kidney failure and there was nothing more we could do. I expected you to die."

Suprise! Then things got better. After all but leaving me for dead on Friday, I started to show improvement on Saturday; my kidneys did not fail and I started to regain conciousness. By Sunday afternoon I was coherent; that evening I was watching TV... on the anniversary of 9/11 I was so out of my mind that I thought there was a sniper in the tree across the street (turns out that paranoia and other strange behaviors are not uncommon for people who have been unconcious for any length of time); on Tuesday the 12th I ate my first meal in over a week and was moved out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit; on Tuesday the 19th I was transferred to a physical rehabilitation hospital where I spent sixteen days while recieving IV antibiotics and attending 3 hours of physical therapy each day. During this period I went from being unable to walk due to my gangrenous feet (remember those blood clots I mentioned?) to performing light weight lifting exercises and spending time on the stationary bicycle. I continued to eat as much food as I could manage as my weight was down to 185#. On Thursday, October 5th I left the rehab hospital and went back to my Aunt Cinda's house.

I spent the next week finishing up IV antibiotic therapy and eating as much food as I could. My weight was still below 190#, and I could barely climb a flight of stairs without getting dizzy. The antibiotics made me feel like shit and the everyfourhours schedule kept me from getting more than three hours of sleep at a time. I was constantly exhausted and extremely week. I did some reading, but mostly I slept and watched TV.


On Friday, October 13th I was admitted to the hospital for partial foot amputations. Put down your sandwich and have a look at the dorsal view (that'd be the view from the top - like a shark's DORSAL fin)!





Not so bad, you say. It's just your toes...




Now check out the plantar surfaces (that'd be the bottoms).



Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeew... yep, it's true. Those are my size sixteens. My dogs and all my piggies after holding their breath for a few days. No more '15 feet' license plate frames for me... no saying I have to row in the six seat because the rest of the shoes in the boat are too small for me... no more going toe to toe... no more tip-toeing around uncomfortable situations... no more troublesome toenails... no more toe jam (or jambed toes)... no more fancy toe-nail polish. It's over folks; my toes have been thrown in the trash.

But I'm alive, and I haven't been in a wheelchair for ten days now... the future so bright, I've gotta wear shades.

U(N)5M

p.s. walk walk walk... ridin the stumpy... liftin weights... hittin the road... could be worse; could be rainin!

d.