Update on My Uncle Walt - Prayer request
Hi there.
A number of people have asked for an update on my maternal uncle, Walt Mitchell. He has a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. His mom died from it back in 1975 when she was about his age now. Another brother and his son also have it.
He has been in a hospital in Cleveland for the past month because his condition recently worsened. He was put on the top of the donor list, and a heart came in, but unfortunately it wasn't healthy enough for a transplant. After several days, the doctors needed to operate to get him on a mechanical heart.
On Tuesday (9/11) they operated for about 8 hours and couldn't complete the operation because of complications. Apparently Walt had a build up of plaque around his heart, and they spent about 4 hours trying to scrape it loose. The 70% chance of survival went down to 50%.
At one point they had to bring him back to consciousness to make sure he hadn't stroked. They wanted to get him stabilized so that they could go back in yesterday.
According to a recent update from my Mom via my cousin, my uncle Walt didn't have the surgery. He had been running 102 fever, his kidneys have not been not functioning well, and has had very low blood pressure.
The doctors told my cousin Ken that today they are going to go in and remove a part of the diseased heart and replace with some kind of artificial heart. This is basically a stop-gap measure to keep him alive until another decision can be made (we're assuming getting a human donor heart) when he recovers from this surgery. There are lots of risks to this surgery.
Ken said he does talk to Walt and has told him we all are praying for him, and Walt lightly squeezes Ken's hand. Just wanted you all to be encouraged by that.
Right now Walt is being kept sedated for pain reasons and to keep him calm.
There is still hope so keep praying. We know the Great Physician has His plan.
Thursday night update from my Mom: Walt went into surgery @ 2PM Cincinnati time and didn't come out until about 10PM. He is doing about as well as can be expected the doctors said so we are cautiously optimistic. I don't know too many more details because I was at a meeting when Ken called and he left a voice message.
I will try to get another update tomorrow ASAP. Keep praying he continues to do well.
5 comments:
I think we all take our health for granted until we are reminded of how short our time here is and that one day it'll be our turn.
I do pray for your uncles recover and in any event whatever happens that you and your family can accept Gods decision with ease.
We all take life for granted until something like this reminds of us how short our time here is. We all will need to return to our creator one day.
I do pray that your uncle makes a full recovery and in any event that you and your family will accept Gods decision with ease.
We'll keep on praying for him Daniel!
I'm there with ya Dan, praying your uncle pulls through and a new donor heart becomes available!
>>Ed Ovett
Dan... I haven't heard anything all day about your uncle. We will continue prayers and positive thoughts his and your direction.
Post a Comment