Well, things are always a little crazy around here, but nothing like what just happened in the past 24 hours.
Let me start off by saying I have this amazing, incredible little sister named Amie. Amie's been our miracle girl from day 1, and after 21 years of miracles, she had another miracle yesterday.
Amie was born a month early with a hyperplastic left ventrical (her heart's left chamber was too small). At three weeks and 4.5 lbs, she had her first heart transplant and has been doing wonderfully ever since. She competitively swam for a USS team from the age of 5-19, swam on her college team, and received scholarships from various universities for her academic performance. Last year, she started to have some health issues with her heart. After a few weeks in the hospitcal, she came home and, except for scaling back her athletic activities and sodium intake, as well as taking a hiatus from Brigham Young University where she was pursuing a degree in Audiology, she was back to normal and looking fantastic.
Last month, she started experiencing major chest pains, and after another brief stay in the hosptial and two stints later, she was put on the list to receive another heart transplant. She could no longer run or swim, (or even throw balls to her band of loyal cattle dogs) and had to take nitroglycerin several times a day. The doctors said the stints would last 4 months, so the transplant would have to happen soon.
Yesterday morning was just another check-up with her cardiologist, her vitals were fantastic and she was the picture of health. There still wasn't a heart available and it looked like it could be another month or so before the transplant. That afternoon, she received a call from the hospital saying it looked like a great heart had just come in, and that there was a chance she may would have the transplant that evening but to go about her day as normal while they looked it over (how do you go "back to normal" after that kind of news?). Minutes later, they called back, saying the heart was perfect and to come to the hospital immediately.
Transplants are never easy, and a heart transplant has to be one of the most grisly operations. The patient must undergo a "controlled death." All the blood in the body must be diverted into a cardiopulmonary machine during the procedure (ie, they take out all the blood in the body) and the body temperture is dropped substantially to slow the body's demand for oxygen. Medication is given to stop the heart (that's right, stop the heart...as in what happens with a heart attack, as in what causes death), the sternum is cracked (ever had a cracked rib? imagine recovering from a cracked sternum-we're talking multiple cracked ribs and a sternum), the new heart is placed next to the old one and the old heart is removed. Then comes the part where they "switch on" the new heart and hope it "takes." Most of the time, heart transplants are completed in 4 hours.
Amie's was a little different.
The doctors' described the removal of her old heart as "disastrous," and instead of the traditional 4 hours, or even the 5 hours they were hoping for, the transplant lasted a total of 9 hours. In addition to all the scar tissue that had built up over the chest cavity and around the heart from her first transplant, the old heart had adhered itself to the sternum. So, instead of the nice and neat placing-the-new-heart-next-to-the-bad-heart-before-removing-the-bad-heart standard procedure, Amie's heart had to be painstakingly ripped to shreds just in order to remove the sternum. But, once that obstacle was over, everything went beautifully.
Her new heart is in wonderful condition, with big, healthy arteries, and the doctors say she looks great. There are a few more obstacles that she's having to overcome, one of them being that she couldn't have any pain medication for 2-4 hours after the surgery (so they could gauge her pain and response ability) but for now, she can grasp hands on command, move her eyebrows to answer questions, and wiggle her toes. When asked if she was in a lot of pain, she nodded her her head...hard.
Amie still has a long way to go, but with every hour showing improvements, we are hoping and praying that her recovery is quick and easy, and relatively painless. But at any rate, she has just completed, for a second time, the most challenging and strenuous athletic event in the world. She's traveled to death and back.
If you're interested in reading a little more about Amie, stop by her new blog : http://ugotheart.blogspot.com/
And she has an adorable illustration shop here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/CheerMeUp?ref=em
Kit
