About Me (In My Own Words)
Gosh...where to even start...well on January 19th 2017 I had walked (more or less carried by my husband at the time) into regions emergency room in st paul minnesota thinking my appendix ruptured..however I couldn't have been more wrong...I was in septic shock which had been slowly shutting my organs down for at least 24 hours prior to me going to the ER. On top of that I had necrotising pneumonia which had eaten a literal whole in the bottom of my lungs and was now filling my plural cavity with fluid. This fluid was putting pressure on my heart making it progressively harder to beat. The pain from that is what brought me to the er. At first they had no idea what was going on they just had a 22 year old with a high fever who was crashing in triage..I was immediately put into a coma. They then drained the fluid around my heart which stabilized my vital signs for the time being. I of course knew none of this. I wouldnt find this out until i awoke months later after the fight of my life. So They thought I was going to die before my mom even had a chance to get there...(she lived 10 mins away) I was at deaths door for lack of better words.. i was diagnosed with MSSA endocarditis and necrotizing pneumonia...The first week the doctors gave me no chance of living they went through the motions as my organs failed one by one. Shockingly though I held on and I did not throw any detectable emboli. Still i was denied a valve transplant day after day as a lay in the icu. Initially I was denied heart surgery, 5 times actually, until for some reason my organ systems started coming back, they got their "window" as they called it, and just like that I was being taken to the OR for a trricuspid replacement. When they got inside they found a mass (supposed to be microscopic but...) it was 0.4cm large with Fibrae 0.2 cm and it had started to create a fistula..but I made it through the surgery but wasn't out of the woods yet.. 9 blood transfusions, multiple codes, and a stroke later I was still hanging on. It had taken me 6 months on nonstop central line medication to clear me of the infection that had absolutely destroyed my body. My odds of recovery were less than one percent..the odds of my walking out of the hospital fully mentally intact were non existent. Needless to say I am very lucky to be here..I was blessed with doctors and nurses who all put their heart and soul into my care..some even would come on their days off just to sit and braid my hair and talk to me while I was in the coma..when I woke up and started relearning how to walk and talk so many nurses and doctors would stop me and go "oh my God you don't remember me but I had you!" Absolutely dumbfounded that I was not just Alive but well..up and walking. Most people in the cases would have if by some miracle they lived would have been transferred to a long term care facility..hell my former husband the one who was there with me through all of this..a year and a half later had acquired the same infection...he unfortunately didn't make it.
Thus is my heart story...and let me mention...this is the ugly side of addiction that they don't tell you about..I was actually even committed by the state to drug rehab because upon waking up I decided to sneak drugs into the hospital and well got caught of course. Twice...when this happened I was 22 years old...I am not 29 and sober now thankfully i was introduced to methadone because despite all the crap it still wasnt enough to stop me... it was literally 1 week after I left the state rehab (after a year plus of being in a locked facility...thats a whole other story though i suppose.) when my husband had gone into the hospital..this was april 8th 2018...on may 1st 20 days before his 25th bday and 25 days until our anniversary..my beloved carson had died...no one had ever once mentioned endocarditis to us...nor had I heard anything of it since. Other than my story, which I've found is so undeniably rare..but I don't expect that to mean a damn thing, if you take only one thing from reading my heart story let it be this. Always alcohol off your skin and use sterile practices. Even if you yourself don't use, these days we all know someone, make sure they are practicing good sterility because I promise no one wants to end up in my story..I'm blessed to be here.. but the cost was so great its hard to say it's worth it...I now have to have the valve replaced every so often...I also have a pacemaker.. but I'll forever be paying the price to my choices I made when I was 22..
And that concludes my heart story...thank you for reading.
More Info About Me & My Heart
More About Me
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I am from:
Roseville, Minnesota
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My surgery date is:
January 30, 2017
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My surgery was:
Tricuspid Valve Replacement
Pacemaker Implant
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My hospital is:
Regions
