Blink of an Eye

I am breathless and feel numb. Call it shock.  The positive news is that Owen is fighting with everything he's got.

All day long Owen has been sleeping off and on.  He hasn't wanted to eat much and has been pretty moody.  He was due to be discharged this afternoon and we were planning to head back to AZ tomorrow.  Mother's intuition told me that he was not okay to be discharged and his echo proved he was just not stable.  Still.. I shed a few tears when Rosenthal told me he would feel more comfortable if Owen stayed a few more days just to be monitored until he was feeling like himself.  So I cancelled airline tickets and extended our hotel reservations.

At around 5:00 tonight Owen asked to get out of bed to go for a walk.  As he stood up he cried out in pain so I put him back in bed.  He quickly turned blue and said the pain was unreal.  His nurse hit the code blue button and he coded.  God's timing was perfect as every doctor in the CVICU was just outside our room as they brought Owen's roommate back from the OR.  I have never seen so many people more so quickly and Owen was quickly resuscitated with chest compressions.  They placed a central line and let me come back in to see him before intubating.  He was "stable" and he asked me what just happened and wanted to know what was happening.  I told him Daddy, Kam and Logi were on their way and that he needed to stay strong for us.  He said I love you and I told him he was headed back to the cath lab. 

The entire cath team, heart failure, transplant, and CVICU team were still in the unit and there were at least 20 members of his team.  Doctors that know him inside and out.  Included was a cardiology fellow that was with him every step of the way last spring at PCH while he was on ECMO.  She was able to answer all the previous ECMO access questions without a hitch. 

My world collapsed in when I heard there was probably not going to be much they could do for him and that he was most likely not going to make it. If he coded again, he would pass away.  They were hoping to find a clot in the stent in his coronary but knew that was a one in a million chance.  He was on a ton of blood thinners and the stent was placed yesterday.

I walked with them to cath lab and sat outside the doors waiting for them to call me back and tell me he is was dying.  A couple of heart moms were shoulders to cry on and the social worker got Carson's plane tickets arranged and covered.  Every tiny miracle that could be fell into place.

His entire stent was completely occluded which is unheard of.  They busted the clot and they are starting him on TPA and Heparin.. as well as Asprin and Plavix.  We will do everything we can to keep it from clotting again.. but he is very unstable.  The right side of his heart also has severe coronary disease but we can't do anything to help it so that also could have played a vital role in what happened. 

He is still here and kicking ass!!  They took him down for a full body CT to check his access because ECMO doesn't seem to be an option due to occlusion in his veins.  They also had to check his brain for bleeds from the code.  If all looks well we should be able to list him for transplant SOON.  We have options.  All very HIGH RISK, but we have options.  Just a few hours ago I was signing consent with the very real thought that I would never see my boy again.  I will not be leaving his bedside and I have a bed inside the unit if I need to rest tonight. 

Carson and the kids will be here before midnight and my sis-in-law Janesa drove down from San Fran to be with me.  Keep the prayers coming.. he is not out of the woods and there is no way to know if this will happen again.  Coronary Artery Disease is not going to take him down! 

Right now I am exhausted.. physically.. emotionally and I have cried every last tear I have.  Keep the prayers coming.