Monday afternoon

It was a busy morning.  Lots of people coming to see us.  The Social Worker came to visit, we have known Alice for years since she runs the Transplant Support Group.  Then a dietician came.  John has liked the low sodium meals here and there is a nice variety.  In prior hospitalizations we had to order the whole days food each morning.  Here we order it and it is delivered within 45 minutes.

A volunteer came in and gave us communion, so that was nice.

Yesterday when we checked in we got lots of "oh, you're the one that's getting the first HeartMate III!" and "Oh, we've heard about you"  Everyone seems real excited about the clinical trial.  We just got a call from Cardiac Services wanting to know if we would consider letting them film his procedure tomorrow.  They are trying to get one of the local TV stations interested in doing a piece on this new HeartMate III.  So we agreed.

This morning when rounds were being done we found out that we should have been scheduled for a dental appointment here.  John had his last cleaning in April of this year, and saw our dentist on July 10th.  As I am typing this, he is having an exam by a UWMC dentist.  They want to make sure that he doesn't have any issues that need to be taken care of.  Now a full set of xrays.  Since he was placed on the heart transplant waiting list over six years ago, we took care of the dental requirement at that time. 

The other requirement was to see an infectious disease specialist.  They just came to us also and were very curious about our recent travels.  They said that John does not have antibodies for Hep B anymore, so he'll be getting a booster this afternoon.

He will not be getting the balloon pump, but did get an additional IV diuretic.  It really works, we are afraid to leave the room.   He also will be having an ultrasound of his carotid artery this afternoon.

Other than that, we have walked twice today and hope to get in three more before I leave for the night.  The biggest problem is that John needs to be disconnected from his equipment and reconnected to a portable device.  I wish they would teach me how to do it, so we don't have to bother our nurse every time.

We have a manual that is all the information about his device.  We also have Patient Workbooks.  I have started my workbook about five times today, and am still on the second page.  We are staying busy!

Colleen and John