Kayla Quote: "This Life - I wouldn't wish it on anyone....(not even my worst enemies) Pray for me...I'm losing this battle...I love my family and friends so much. They are the reason for the breaths I take each day...." Kayla 11/7/07
"May you trust in God that you are exactly where you are meant to be..." St. Theresa's Prayer
Short Synopsis: Kayla went to surgery by 9 a.m. They were supposed to be out in a couple of hours. I waited and waited and knew something was wrong. She had a cardiac arrest right after they finished the surgery. They cut out the mass - it was still benign. Immediately her heart decompressed....but they saved her. Heroically so! What should have been a simple surgery and then release to home in one-two days turned into a nightmare...what next?
Long Story: Kayla collects quotes and often posts them on her Facebook page. She also likes to post her status daily. Now her page went silent and her friends began to wonder where she was.
Early in the morning, I got to the hospital. I wanted to be with her before her surgery. As I was walking into the front door, she texted me....where was I? Just 10 minutes before, as I rode down the Saw Mill Hwy....she texted me....a beautiful message how I meant everything to her, that she loved me. I began to cry....what was this? Then I was on my way in and my brother Gary from North Carolina calls me...."I just got a text from Kayla...what the hell is going on up there?"
"Oh, Gary...she sent messages to people I guess. She is getting a surgery this morning."
"Keep me in the loop," he says.
Kayla must have known something that none of us were aware of....she knew her body. Foreboding... When I got to her, she was anxious. She was stalling. They had come to get her for the surgery and she was finishing up all these texts. I think she sent about 20 of them...to family, to friends, to anyone.
Only Kayla can hold up things like this.
"Kayla!" I got impatient, "You are holding up the operating room.....you are the first one at 7:30 a.m. and if you don't go in, all the others will be delayed."
Didn't matter.
Kayla holds to no time. Have you ever been to a bathroom with her? She is like an old lady....takes forever. And that's just what she did when we got down to the holding area where they put you to gather last bit information before you are wheeled into surgery.
"I have to go to the bathroom," she said softly.
One of the personnel there was getting a little miffed. He was the one who kept watch on the clock.
"It's 8:15 now. She was supposed to go in at 7:30."
I had to laugh. Only "the Kayla" could pull this off. Get every last minute before your life was to radically change. Before you would be put to sleep for a week! No one knew this....but on some level, Kayla did.
Kayla was finally ready and back in the bed...she kissed me and told me, "I love you. Thank you."
She also said, "You can answer any text from your family but don't say a word to my friends." Then she handed me her cell phone. I was now the proud possessor of two cell phones.
I did as I was told.
I went into the Operating Waiting room with all the other families. I waited and I waited. Then it was several hours beyond what I was supposed to be waiting. I saw other families get their news from the doctors who came in....so and so will be fine...in recovery....no one came for me.
I was sinking deeper and deeper into my chair, immobilized. A mother feeling desperate now.
When they came to get me, it wasn't one doctor, it was 3 people - the gynecologist surgeon who did the actual surgery, the cardiac anesthesiologist and her brand new transplant cardiologist. They had very long faces. I could read the bad news.
I was not going to get a report in front of all the other waiters. I was being ushered into a special room with four walls and no windows and they closed the door. Only 4 black cushy chairs in there, white walls, stuffy.
They never said the word "cardiac arrest" - I was not going to find that out until 12 hours later when the ICU nurse said it. I was shocked.... All they said was - Her heart did not like it. The surgery was successful but immediately after, her heart almost stopped, not quite. They were there with everything in place to get to her. They were prepared. I had no idea what this meant.
Over the next few hours, I was to learn all about the brand new medical advances...how they now save patients whose hearts "crash." Kayla's left ventricle was in bad shape for months. She was diagnosed with "transplant coronary artery disease" in November 2009. Slowly, her all her heart branch vessels were clogging up. There was no cure. Her only chance at life, was, once again, to get a new heart transplant.
Her left ventricle stopped working and all the blood backed up....the right ventricle, which was working pretty good, up to this point, was awash in blood with no place to send it. It then was overloaded and crashed. This is cardiac arrest....the heart is no longer pumping and it stops.
Over the last five years, there has been tremendous advances in cardiac acute care. There are "devices" that they implant into patients to save their lives. These are temporary devices but they work. They are also used as "bridge devices" to transplantation. A temporary step....as you wait for that much needed donor heart.
Kayla's heart no longer was going to support her body. It would no longer pump effectively to oxygenate her brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, heart.
Kayla is like a cat with nine lives....she has used up about 8 of them.
The surgeons implanted an ECMO (Extra Corporeal Membrane Oxygenator). It has cannulas (tubes) that are inserted into the body directly. The whole purpose is to send oxygenated blood through the body to temporarily do the job of the heart. It's short term, only a few days is best.
Kayla's heart needed more. The ECMO was not enough so they implanted an additional device called the Impella. This went directly into the left ventricle and its purpose was to pull out fluid and blood and assist the ECMO. This worked.
It took time to stabilize her. She was then delivered to the CT-ICU up on the fifth floor. C stands for Cardio and T stands for Thoracic (chest).
Kayla wanted to return to her regular room that she was in before the surgery. It had a beautiful view of the Hudson River, just below the George Washington Bridge.
She got her wish....her ICU room was on the river side....
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