Update #2

Thank you to everyone who sent up prayers and positive thoughts! Patrick is out of surgery and in a recovery room for the evening while his cath sites heal, and he will be moved to a cardiac procedure recovery unit for the night, where he will be allowed out of bed. The doctor called and told me that Patrick did well throughout the procedure. He said in order to accurately map Patrick's heart, one of the things they do is they run electrical currents through the heart tissue at different times and they map what they see. When the voltage dips, that shows a part of the heart that is damaged. They also try to test the heart during an arrhythmia, which means they induce v-tach so they can see where it is originating from. They already have an idea of where they come from based on the mapping, previous mappings, and other charts and tests that have been run in the past. But a current v-tach while they are in there makes their work extremely accurate. Patrick's blood pressure dropped whenever they tried to induce an arrhythmia, so they went with what they already knew to determine where in the heart to ablate. But the doctor is optimistic that the work they did today will decrease the number of episodes Patrick has, and also lessen the severity. They will check back in three months to see how many episodes Patrick has had, and whether they were able to be paced out by the pacemaker or if his defibrillator had to shock the heart back into normal rhythm. None of this will get rid of the heart transplant. That is an unavoidable eventuality. But if we can postpone it for several years there is a good chance we will also improve Patrick's quality of life for a longer period of time. Transplants aren't easy, and if something goes wrong, its fatal. No do-overs. So if we can eek by with this procedure (possibly having to repeat it in the future) and a sizable and extreme medication regimen, we will. Again, thanks to everyone for the positive thoughts and well wishes. I won't update again until tomorrow unless anything changes. As long as he does well overnight, he will be coming home tomorrow! ... No one tell Patrick that the girls and I treated ourselves to Pagoda for lunch 😏

Update #1

I just received a call from a nurse named Sarah in Washington. She said Patrick was joking and making everyone laugh before they started. Of course he was 😆

She said they started with a mapping of Patrick's heart, which is almost done. After the mapping they will decide where to perform the ablation based on where the v-tachs are originating from. She doesn't know how many spots there are yet, nor which ones they will do the ablation on. She said he is sedated and resting comfortably.

I asked her to let him know she called me because he would like that, and she said she would call again in a couple hours.

Is it just me or does today feel like its 36 hours long? 💙

Flight Update

Patrick is currently enjoying *evil giggle* a 5-hour layover in Anchorage, before he leaves for Seattle at 1:30am. He will receive a rapid Covid-19 test when he arrives for his appointment at 7:15am Seattle time (6:15am Alaska time). After they get the negative result they will do the ablation. He gets into Seattle at 6:00am. This was the best we could do. He's going to be tired. This is basically a repeat of his last visit in March, except with the added bonus of a really uncomfortable procedure. He will have had no rest, and I feel so badly for him. I wish there was more I could do. I am setting my alarm for 5:15 so I can catch him when he gets off the plane. I want to talk to him before he goes into the hospital, and I made sure to tell him already to call as soon as he could after the procedure. I'm worried, but I am also trying to have faith. I pray this procedure is successful, and I pray we can put off the transplant for a few years. We have a great friend who lives in Seattle who will be playing Significant Other for a few hours. I will be keeping in touch with him, and will update this page when I know more. Thanks everyone for the support, the prayers, and the well wishes. The last couple days have been incredibly stressful, but our support network is just that - a net. When we feel like we're about to fall apart, you guys catch us. You're amazing ❤️