AllThingsMickey4
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Aug 2, 2014
I have been thinking about you and your family all weekend. I will continue praying for him and your family. I really hope they can find out what is going on with him.
I hope your Dad is alright and able to get his health sorted.
Thank you for your thoughts and prayers!!! We just got home this afternoon. Basically he was diagnosed with cardiac myopathy (a disease that attacks the heart muscle), but they have no idea what caused it. Apparently blockages are usually the first cause, but he is completely clear. He had an upper respiratory virus in January, so it is possible that the virus started all of this, but they said that is more common in children. Basically they said it doesn't really matter what caused it as long as we focus on how to treat it at this point.
His heart was pumping at 10% and his liver and kidneys were failing when he was life-flighted last Friday night. He spent 4 days in the cardiac ICU at MUSC and the doctor said he was basically as close to death as he could be. It's honestly questionable whether he would've made it through Friday night. They took almost 3 gallons of fluid that had built up in his lungs and around his heart and liver. He lost 30 pounds mostly due to the excess fluid. Unfortunately he developed DVT blood clots in both legs from his heart not being able to pump his blood effectively, so they had to insert a small filter into his vein to catch any clots that could break off and travel to his lungs. He is back to walking (very slowly) and is just very very weak. His liver numbers are much better, but not all the way back to normal so he has to avoid taking any OTC pain meds, which makes dealing with his leg pain even worse.
Basically now we wait and pray that all of the pills he is on make his heart stronger.. if they don't get him back to where they need to be that is when we have to start thinking about mechanical heart pumps and possibly transplant. The doc seems to think there is a good chance he can get back to where he needs to be in 6-8 weeks, so we will continue to pray! Just glad to have him home - it's crazy to think that last Friday I was in tears/about to throw up because I didn't think he would survive the flight. He has come a very long way and has fought so hard. It is truly a miracle