Still Here

I'm still here. I know I haven't written in a very long time, but I've been going through some really hard issues lately. I had heart surgery in January to implant a Loop Recorder Device. It records everything that my heart does and all the rythms and heart beats.
I've been very depressed and been sleeping alot.
I'm still trying to get my pain under control, and still on a very high dose of pain meds.

All I can ask for is prayer.

Heart Surgery

I am having heart surgery tomorrow morning.


I have to be at the hospital at 8:30am, and the hospital is a hour and half away, which means we are leaving at 6:45am. I don't know what time my surgery is, but all I do know is that I am getting 1 if not 2 devices implanted into my heart. The 1st one being a recorder which will montior and record my heart beats and rythmns. The 2nd device will be a defibilator.



I was suppose to have a pacemake/defib put in, but the cardiac surgeon realized that if we were to put those in now, I would never be able to get them out.

These 2 devices will be able to be put it, and taken out at a later date. If my heart shows signs that I need the pacemaker, we will put it in, but at a later date.



After having 11 different surgeries last year, I am kinda calm about this surgery in the morning, with the exception that this is my heart.



Please pray for my anixousness between then and now. Pray that my port-a-cath will not have a clog and will be able to be used with no issues. Pray for the Dr.'s and nurses as they work on my heart. Pray that nothing goes wrong.

This should be an outpatient surgery, but I am taking an over night bag just in case.

Heart Day

Today is the day that I go to the cardiologist to find out my results of my EKG and Holter monitor.
I'm also having some other issues that are probably related to either my heart or lungs or both. I'm hoping to get answers for those problems too.
Regarding my lungs and asthma, I am going on Thursday to the lung Dr. to have a breathing test done, and then right after I'm going to see my lung Dr. and get the results and see what we can do about my breathing issues and the fact that oxygen levels have been low.

Overall, I've just not been feeling well. I can't put my finger on it, but I'm always short of breath, and just not how I was before I got sepsis. I don't know if recovering from sepsis takes a long time, but considering how sick I was, maybe it does. I also know that heart and lung problems kinda go hand in hand. If you have one problem, it won't be long till you get or have problems with the other.
Thankfully, both my heart and lung Dr. 's are at the same hospital clinic, and in fact they are on the same floor and right next door to each other. They both have all the info on me, and they both can read what the other is doing or has done.
 Include that my GI Dr. is also at the same clinic, and I feel for the first time safer about my medical health, knowing that all 3 of my specialist Dr.'s are located in the same clinic, and they all have access to my medical history and what the other has done, what meds the other has prescribed, and what is going on with me from another Dr.

Big Update

This is going to be long, but here is my big update about everything that has happened in the past month.

First off, my surgery on April 22nd was my 5th surgery this year alone. My body was already run down, tired, and still healing from the first 4 surgeries I had.

So, on April 22nd, I went and had my surgery to insert the Spinal Cord Stimulator into my back (in between my shoulder blades) and the battery box into my right hip.Everything went great and I was home within 2 days. While at home, I had a home health care nurse and occupational therapist come out 3 times a week. Nursing wise, everything looked fine. I was also on very strong anti-biotics, just to be on the safe side.
The following Friday, April 30th, I had an appt. to actually turn the SCS on, but when I did it didn't feel the same as it did when I had my trial surgery for the SCS. So, I turned it off and called the tech, and we scheduled to meet.
I was doing well. Going places, spending time with family. But, I wasn't back to my old self.
All that changed the day of May 5th. The following night, I went out to dinner with my mom, aunt, and grandmother. We went to Chili's to support their churchs' youth group. I remember that I came home and went to bed, feeling OK.
about 3am on Wednesday I woke up feeling HORRIBLE. I started running a fever, and I hurt all over and was in horrible pain. My fever kept climbing, so at 5am, I woke my mom and she figured out how sick I was. She took me to the closest ER which is only 10 min. away. They took me back immediatly, and my fever was 106.3 . My blood pressure was dangerously low. At this point I don't remember much of what they started doing for me. I know that they ran pretty much every test in the book. I had blood work (which showed I had an infection), a CT scan, x-rays, 2 spinal taps ( I remember being awake for both, and asking to be sedated and they didn't. Those hurt so bad, more than anything else did). I remember being asleep, and suddenly being woken up because I had several bags of ice placed all over my body because they couldn't get my fever to go down. It took almost 12 hours for my fever just to drop 2-3 degrees. It took 5 days before my temp. returned to normal.  After all tests had been run, they finally thought to look at my hip and back, where I had just had surgery. That's when the realized that I had developed sepsis ( a severe blood infection). I was transferred by ambulance to a different hospital, one the my neurosurgeon worked at. I had surgery exactly 2 weeks after I had my SCS put in, to take it out, and thus remove what was causing the infection.  I was placed in the ICU for 4 days, and was in and out of consciousness. I remember that I would start talking in my sleep, so they would sedate me.
I was eventually moved to a regular room, and was dismissed from the hospital 2 days later.
Looking back on everything and doing research, I'm glad I don't remember much. I learned that if sepsis is not treated quickly that people can die from it and in most cases people have alot of damage and trauma to their internal organs, but I have no lasting effects.

I go back to the neurosurgeon in August to discuss having the SCS put back in. The SCS is my only way to be able to get off all these pain meds.

After I got home, my mom told me that one of the tests showed that I have a deformation on my heart, and the Dr.'s told her to get me in to see a cardiologist. I saw her last week, and she did an EEG of my heart and it came out a little off, so tomorrow I am going in to have an Echo done of my heart and to get fitted to do a 24 hr Holter Moniter test. I'll get my results in a week.

Cardio Appt.

Today was my Cardio appt. and I really liked the Cardio Dr.
I had some lab work done, and in 2 weeks I will have an echocardiogram done and will also be fitted with and wear a holter moniter for 24 hrs. The holter measures my heart beats/rythym for 24 hrs.
Today I had an EEG done and it showed that my heart is not beating the way it is suppose to.
Hopefully we can figure out what is going on, because I never knew I had heart problems.

I have a huge update on the way, but please keep me in your prayers.