I was at North Kansas City Hospital for approximately 5 hours total before they realized that I wasn't in the best hands possible. They did the 2 procedures and transferred me to St. Luke's Mid America Heart Institute in Kansas City. This is the part of the journey that I have absolutely no recollection of but glad I don't. There's no way in hell I'd want to be awake for these next few days. I recently met the charge nurse who got me from the stretcher from North KC Hospital and to the CVICU at St Lukes. She's a beast and she looked me in the eye about a 2 months ago and said when she saw me that night, she knew I wouldn't make it until morning. She knew I was a Mother of 2 and that September 29th is the night I would go on to Heaven. She also said, that night she fought with a great group of nurses and Dr's to keep me alive and fought harder than they have had to in a while. When I met her again a couple of months ago she showed me videos of her BOXING like a total badass with Mike Tysons' trainer. That's another moment that I knew I was in the right place and I wanted people like her on my side.
Back to when I was sickest- from what I have heard, all of my organs started shutting down. Now keep in mind that this is just my version from the bits and pieces of what I have heard from anyone because honestly I don't remember a lick of anything from the first month. As my organs were shutting down, I remember getting dialysis for my kidneys, I remember seeing Dr's and nurses and rooms of people I love every single time I opened my eyes. I also remember not seeing my kids every single time I opened my eyes. I remember seeing one of my best friends, Adam, who lives in New York magically next to me at the hospital. He is one of those people that you see him and you know everything is going to be OK. My family, my husband, my Mom, my Aunt, my brother, my sister, everyone described to me their fear in what was happening to me and how sick I was until they met my surgeon on October 2nd.
October 2nd was the day I had my life-saving Left Ventricular Assist Device placed by my God of a doctor, Dr Borkon. My Mom described to me her fear of everything until she met him and she said he was such a blessing and it's like he could walk on water. He was so confident and my family KNEW I would be OK once I was in his hands. Kind of how I felt when I woke up and saw Adam, he has always taken care of business for me. Whether it's buying me a round of shots or fighting for my life, he has always been there. I have very few friends like him and I treasure each of them so much. I recovered from the LVAD surgery slowly and finally got out of the ICU up to a normal room with the funniest and best nurses just in time to get kicked out and go back down to the ICU because there was fluid around my heart now. After another open heart surgery to get rid of that, I was moved back up to the good floor. 5 South was where I wanted to be.
Because all of my organs shut down, I had not gone to the bathroom in WEEKS which was a very talked about subject for me once I was awake. **do not read if you're a pansy** When I finally did get to pee, it was BLACK/GREEN! I remember the nurses telling me no, there's no way you can pee because your organs are not working at all. I said YES- I HAVE TO! They put in a lovely catheter and here came a big black bag of urine. So what do I do? Immediately ask someone to take a selfie of me and my bag of pee!! (still have the pic, available upon request)
This all doesn't sound too bad when I'm typing it but this was all during a VERY LONG touch and go 6 weeks of hell. I was not well and celebrated every little thing that I could. Black pee- YAY! No more dialysis- YAY! I get to see all of my friends and family- YAY! I'm not sure if I'm going to make it out of this hospital and how did I get here- SHIT! I have gained 50 pounds of fluid weight in 2 weeks- SHIT! All we could do at this point was pray that I was going to make it. I was very very sick. When I was finally awake I had such messed up mixed emotions and pain. While I was there towards the end I just started to wonder, WHY?!?
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