Deja Vu

Kim and I are sitting here chilling with Carlos.  He got into his ICU room about  1050 this morning but we didn't get back here until about 1215, once they had him tucked in.

One of the transplant doctors came and talked to us after surgery.  They had a tough time getting in and getting the old heart and LVAD out.  There was a lot of scar tissue which, considering how he keloids on external scars, didn't surprise me.  Because of the that, he had quite a bit of bleeding.  He received a bunch of blood products.  See picture below :-)   They got the new heart in and it immediately started beating.  In fact, its right where they want it and he's not requiring any pacing.  They removed his BiV pacemaker as well.

He's already breathing spontaneously on the lowest vent settings.  They want him to wake up a little more before extubating but sounds like it will be by tonight if not sooner.  He has lots of other stuff hooked up as you can see in the picture...chest tubes, various lines, and the event.  His kidneys got a little ticked off so creatinine went up to 1.9 from 1.6, but output is great and they aren't concerned.

I love watching his heart rate.  Not a single PVC or other arrhythmia.....just very steady beat.  Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of his old heart.  They wouldn't let me have it in a jar either :p. The nurse said it was pretty amazing to look at the difference between the two hearts though.  She said his old heart was big and floppy while the new was tight and smaller.

We don't know anything about the donor at this point.  I think there will a lot of time later to think about that but I'm so incredibly thankful that despite someone else's suffering we can have this gift.