March 4, 2008

March 4, 2008


Thank God for sleep. I think it is the only thing that is helping Garrett escape the pain right now. Kathy and Jessi are finally getting some needed rest in a sleep room one floor down. I am spending the night with Garrett and we'll tag-team in the morning. They have a nice recliner in his room where we can kick back with him and watch him sleep when we are with him.

Garrett is now over 24 hours into his new life, but it has been a tough start. He is in a lot of pain when he is awake, but can't move much because of all the tubes, wires and IVs. I did feed him a little ice chips tonight, which seemed to calm him. In one of his better hours, we talked baseball and he's decided he'd like to have his birthday party at a Rockies game :-). The boy never quits!!

Tomorrow is scheduled to be a pretty hard day according to the doctors. They want to remove some of his chest tubes if the bleeding has subsided. Some of the medicine they gave him the other day to thin his blood for the stent is causing him to bleed a little more than we would like, but they are not alarmed. They said it will subside. Who would have thought at the time he would get a heart so soon? During the day later, they want to try and get him up and have him walk a little. They said the next two days will be very painful for him, but we must do it to gain him strength and prevent pneumonia.

He is being a trooper...he said he just wants to get up and go home. I haven't told him yet that we may not be able to go home for about 6 months. Right now he is just trying to get used to the idea that he had to say goodbye to "Megan", his little heart he has carried for the last 8 years. He became very connected to his previous donor, and is going through a little mourning over losing her this way. We too feel her loss and love her for what she did for him. We have told him that she has completed the job God had for her in his life, and it is now time for another person to help him. He asked where his heart came from, but we will wait a while to talk to him about that. They also are putting him on a new medication that is normally for leukemia patients, that will drop his immune system dramatically. For that reason, we will be pretty much sequestered from the world until they can build it back up, but it is necessary to try and prevent any new rejection on the front end. He is only the 3rd heart recipient to receive this new preventative therapy.

I need to reiterate that if anyone has plans to come and see Garrett, he cannot have visitors for several days, and then it will only be with folks who have not been sick lately or been around anyone who has been sick. We cannot risk any viruses or other transferable illnesses that would cause him problems especially since his immune system will be so out of whack for a while. The doctors have been very vocal about that. Even here, he is kept on a cardiac only floor.

Please continue your prayers for him and the donor family. They are working and the doctors are pleased with his progress so far. I got to listen to his new heart today with a stethoscope and is runs like a new diesel!! It is fantastic!

God Bless you all,

JD