The waiting game

Friends/family,

Today was an entertaining day at the very least! Brent woke me up at 3:45 am and said "Hey! Do you want to go for a walk? I'm wide awake!" to which I asked him if he really wanted me to go (of course I knew he did) and he said yes, he wanted me to come walk with him but he could call the nurse if I was too tired. He told me he'd been watching me sleep for awhile and hoping I would wake up, but he was so restless that he had to go for a walk. I asked him to call the nurse because I was just too tired. I felt bad, but I needed some rest last night. The nurse walked in, laughed, and said she'd walk with him. I probably should've just gone because Brent was SO wired, I could hear him talking and talking and talking almost the entire walk. When they got back, I told the nurse he never talks that much and I was sorry. :) It was somewhat amusing, but also unfortunate because Brent was so uncomfortable he couldn't sleep! He laid back down but then lab came to draw his blood! We did rest for about another hour afterwards...until...

For the past 4 nights, we've been laughing about the view from our room - we were in a room at the back corner of the hall - the window was painted and there was scaffolding on the other side, so we basically couldn't see anything. This morning, when we were actually sleeping, we awoke all of a sudden at 8:00 to the sounds of loud construction. We both just looked at each other like "You've got to be kidding me!" and started slowly becoming delirious. It was so loud when I was on the phone with a friend, he actually couldn't hear me. We could hear jackhammers, drilling, and hammering. We decided to go for a walk and thought maybe the whole floor could hear it - nope, just our room. We also figure it would have to stop! We could actually see out a little crack of paint in the window and the guys were literally working and drilling right outside our room. We were laughing about it but wondering what we were going to do. Luckily the nurse came in and tried to listen to Brent's heart and said "Um, we've got to get you in a different room right now, I can't hear anything!" So now we're in a different, quieter room. :)

After we moved into the new room, we were both pretty hyper and giggly - likely from lack of sleep. Brent was particular talkative and I kept telling him he had to rest. Megan (Nurse Practitioner) came in a little bit after we moved and found us giggling and Brent chatting away. I told her we both thought he needed an Ativan (similar to Valium) to help calm him down and get some sleep to which she responded that delirium was perfectly normal at this stage of the recovery because of his lack of sleep and being cooped up in the hospital. We got a big kick out of that! I always knew Brent was crazy, but she diagnosed him! ;) She wouldn't give him any meds because she knew he was just exhausted, which was probably for the best. We talked with Megan for quite some time and then she even came back later and explained more about Brent's condition (Tetralogy of Fallot) to us, which was very nice and helpful. We both love Megan!

We also spoke with the surgeon and the cardiologist this morning. Brent's hemoglobin is slowly going up, so that's a good sign - he's not bleeding internally anywhere. Also his pleural effusion has been steadily decreasing in size, which is good news. Unfortunately his INR (how thin his blood is) has remained the same, ~1.3, and we can't leave the hospital until it's closer to 2. His INR could increase to 2 by tomorrow morning and then maybe we could leave then, but we'll have to wait and see. We're very much hoping to leave tomorrow, but you never know. We've been here for 7 nights now and are both very anxious to leave and rest at home. Brent hasn't had any fresh air or been outside in a week! It's weird to be inside so much! Brent seems ok: we took 4 walks today, he's only taking Tylenol for pain, his incisions are healing well, most of his labs are ok, and his x-rays are improving. It's just his INR! We'll see what the morning labs show.

Brent also had 4 friends from his office come visit today, which was so nice. We had a good time talking with them and I think he was very glad for some contact with the real world. He was a little tired afterwards, but then again, he's always tired - he did just have heart surgery.

Brent's doctor has also switched him to a regular diet. For dinner he ordered a mini-pizza, french fries, potato chowder soup, and cheesecake. I can't believe they let anyone in the hospital eat such meals - but at least he ate! He was very excited to have more options besides the bland cardiac diet foods - although he has taken a strange liking to jello...

Today we also asked Megan (Nurse Practitioner) what her opinion was about the wedding/honeymoon. I think we are all starting to agree that it would be best to postpone it, even if it is just 3-4 weeks later. For all of you that are married that are reading this, I think you can agree your wedding day (and the whole weekend!) is exhausting. We both want to be able to enjoy that time with our family/friends - you only get one wedding and I have my whole life to finish grad school. So we sent an email to the wedding director at Flint Hill to inquire which other days are available later in August and in September. We'll see what she says and decide from there. It's all still up in the air, but I don't want to rush Brent's recovery and we both want to enjoy our wedding day. It's very devastating to think about postponing our wedding because we're more in love now than we were a week ago - but in a few years, we'll probably be grateful that we were able to enjoy our beautiful wedding day. It's also very difficult to have to take a semester off of grad school because I just want to be done - but clearly God has another plan for our future. We'll continue to pray about it and look at options and keep everyone posted. We'll likely decide within the next 10 days so we hopefully can give everyone plenty of time to adjust plans if needed.

I know I sound like a broken record, but please continue to pray for Brent and his recovery. I know it's been 5 days since his surgery and he is doing well - so people tend to forget about how serious his situation is - but he is still uncomfortable and in pain and has 7 weeks of sitting at home, which is not easy for anyone. He's having a horrible time sleeping and getting comfortable, so while we may have laughed some today, he's definitely uncomfortable. Please pray that God will really use this time in his life and that he will make a full recovery. Thanks again; we sincerely appreciate the support!

God bless,
Rachel