John’s day has been crazy!
He has had a lot of things to do today, and he is exhausted. His echocardiogram showed that there is some extra blood in front of his heart which is where that blood could have gone when it showed he lost some. However, his heart is still really strong, so they are not concerned about it now. I think right now they are just watching everything and getting some baseline data to go from there. John’s doctors continue to emphasize how much he’s been through, and ECMO makes things a lot more complicated, so at this point they are still pleased.
Right now he is having his biopsy (last week there was 0 rejection on a scale of 0-3), having his right heart cath, and getting dialysis.
We have started to prepare for discharge by the end of the week!!! John is ready to go home, and he is very vocal about it! So tomorrow, after getting all of this done today, he will start rehab boot camp to get him ready to go. He had a different, male, physical therapist today, and he really worked John hard. John will have to go home on dialysis, so every couple of days we will go to a dialysis center close to home. He will also come back to Duke once a week for at least a month for a biopsy and right heart cath.
So things are moving right along, and we think that John will really move forward this week with physical therapy! We just need those kidneys to “wake up” as they say so that he’ll be better than ever and can REALLY start enjoying that new heart!!
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