Captain Tin Man's Journey to See the Wizard

9 weeks ago today we invested in the pricey rebuild kit for my faulty heart valve. So far it's proving worthy of the extra sacrifice and trip to BelieveLand. I've been told on numerous occasions I really suck at updating this blog. This is very true and I've caved to the guilt, so here goes. It's so appreciated some have actually taken the time to follow along. As we've mentioned before, the outpouring of support has been humbling and is so very appreciated. As anticipated, recovery has been full of ups and downs. Overall, I feel so fortunate and couldn't expect to be in a better place than I am now. I've been reminded on numerous occasions to be patient with recovery, and my favorite, "listen to your body". I'm not exactly overflowing with patience and sometimes feel that if we always listened to our bodies we'd all be overweight addicted to prescription pain meds and wearing holes in our couch, or Rascal Scooter seat (think WALL-

Eric's here at MCR for another night, but should be discharged tomorrow. We haven't heard much about the cultures or their results, but he did kick the fever.... And of course, that's a good thing. They want to keep him here just to make sure that fever doesn't return. The echo cardiogram results freaked us out. The cardiologist that read and reported on the echo stated that Eric's valve has "moderate regurgitation". Eric's repair in Cleveland brought him from "severe" regurgitation​ to "trace-mild" regurgitation. Our immediate fear from this information is that the repair is failing. Still, we know that this report came from one cardiologist's interpretation. The results were concerning enough, that a transesophageal ecocardiogram test or "TEE" was ordered. Eric's had this one before.....so he kinda knew what to expect. They stick a big ol wand with a camera down your esophagus with a whole bunch of Versed (to

Eric had an okay night at MCR. It took 3 hours to get him moved out of the ER after he was admitted. That was lame, but oh well. Just a little slower paced here. The room has a pretty view, so there is that. They ran blood cultures throughout the night and he'll have an echo cardiogram anytime now. They're still trying to rule out endocarditis. If the echo cardiogram is inconclusive, he'll undergo a transesophageal ecocardiography to get a really good look at the aorta. Meanwhile, Mackenzie has her echo cardiogram today. Cleveland Clinic really wanted us to find out if the girls have Eric's bi-cuspid aortic valve or not. Maggie's is scheduled for next week. I'll keep you posted.....

Eric is post-op 5 weeks today. He started cardiac rehab last week and that will carry on through October. Imagine a mini-gym mixed with a hospital room. Life got busy. Tennis, soccer, summer reading, IB service hours, doctor appointments, dentist appointments, orthodontist appointments, vision appointments, etc. Kenzo had a doozy of a concussion in her first soccer tournament of the season. Her first concussion. She didn't lose consciousness, but did lose her breakfast on the field. Super scary for Eric and I. Not something we want to experience again anytime soon. She's officially our Scarecrow!  We have a careful eye on her and are hoping she kicks all the symptoms sooner than later. At least her summer reading is all finished! That was ER visit one. ER visit and hospital admit two is for our Tinman. He started running a fever and has felt really rough for the last couple of days. They can't quite figure it out, so they're admitting him to treat him for en

We're home and home never felt so good! Cleveland (the City and the Clinic) exceeded our expectations, but healing is better done with your own bed in the mix and not having to work around the hotel housekeeping schedule. Thanks to everyone for the amazing support we've received. We're overwhelmed by the awesomeness of those around us. Many have asked how the healing is going and what we're up to now, so hopefully this post will provide an update. I was really enjoying Amber's posts and wishfully thinking maybe she would just continue, but apparently it's my turn. I certainly have enough time in a chair to make myself useful.  I know I'm not nearly as funny as her, plus my heart was just stopped and put on ice less than two weeks ago, so no guarantees this will even make any sense. They say you can lose some cognition and affect can change being on that heart/lung bypass machine. They call it " Pump Head ". It's real...and now my new lifel

Eric's evolution from day 4 to yesterday was pretty remarkable. I'm sure we're going to have some "bumps in the road" over the next few days, weeks and months, but so far, he's doing really well. Dr. Svensson made his rounds with his team yesterday morning. It was a about a 5 second interaction. Kinda wild that Eric spent a total of 15 awake minutes (unless you count YouTube 😉) with this person that was inside his chest repairing one of his vital organs. So of course, Eric and I went and captured a moment with Dr. Svennson before Eric was discharged. Eric's got a cool scar on the outside and a bit of hardware on the inside. The valve itself was repaired with some crazy felt type fiber, but he has 7 wires tied like a shoelace through his sternum. (I wish I would've asked for the x-ray image, but maybe we'll get a hold of it later.) He also has a bit of one pacemaker wire left in. The wires are placed within the heart during surgery and left

Eric turned a corner this morning. He dropped the kids off at the pool. He's making laps. Pain is tolerable. He'll be discharged and we should be in our hotel room attached to the hospital by late afternoon. Hopefully his follow-up appointments will he scheduled for Monday, and we could come home to Colorado as soon as Monday night or Tuesday if all goes well over the weekend!

Eric is struggling to find that balance of getting ahead of the pain and not feeling crazy. It's so important to find the balance so he can get his "work" done, and I'm mainly talking about walking. His nurses are working really hard to figure out what's going to work for him. The wizard will make rounds tomorrow.... And it's a big deal. It's an event apparently. Eric's nurse for the night is super jazzed about having Eric as a patient, because it means she gets to hang out and listen to Dr. Svensson during his rounds. It'll be our first time seeing him since the surgery. Hoping for good sleep and no pain for Mr. Eric the rest of the night. More tomorrow.

Okay, maybe not 100, but there have been about 15 different health care professionals in this room in the past 5 hours. Yeah, I know, this is to be expected. This is textbook for hospital care. I just wish these 15 different people worked more as a unit and less individually. I didn't get this feeling until reaching this point in Eric's aftercare. Still, I can't come down too hard on them, because we both know that the overall care here really is exceptional. Eric had a reiki session, which included some massage and aromatherapy. Visual therapy will probably be the 101st to come in next! (No joke!) But of course, the occupational therapist that came in after the reiki nurse, poo-pooed the idea of reiki. Eric's indifferent really, but is willing to try whatever to feel better. It's just interesting to watch all these health care professionals tip toe around each while posturing at the same time. There's talk of discharging Eric tomorrow. Open-heart surgery