Latest update on Cherie's Post-surgery

[kfay]

For those of you who haven't checked her caringbridge page, here is the latest update from her husband:

Hello everyone!

Sorry for the late update. HEY, I've been busy alright!

Cherie is doing well. She had a little minor issue while in ICU last night, but nothing serious.

They kicked her out of ICU earlier today (ok, she was ready to be moved) and is now in her room. All the doctors say she is doing fine and are real happy how the repair turned out. As you can imagine, she's moving pretty slow at this point, however she has taken a few short walks today.

We were also told by the doctors that they all agreed that it would be best to put off the other procedure until next monday. They want to be sure she has time to gain back some strength and also by then she will have all the tubes removed. Needless to say, we're not to excited about staying longer but also want to get that taken care of the right way rather than rush it.

Out host family are the nicest people. They not only have opened up their home to us, but have been getting me back and forth to the hospital, providing nice meals, just making us part of their family. We couldn't have asked for better people.

Tonight I'm staying in the room with Cherie so she's not alone and so I can help her where I can. The hospital had a cot with a pillow and blanket all ready for me when I came back from having dinner with our new friends at their home. I can't say enough how nice everyone here has been.

Thank you to everyone who has been signing the guestbook. I have been reading them to Cherie and she really appreciates it.

Thanks again to all of you, your awesome!

Kim

 

[Greg a]

Kim thanks for pasiing along Scott's update

 

[Kathy McCain]

Thanks for the update!

 

[bigsidster]

Good for Cherie

 

[mainframe]

Glad Cherie is doing so well. Hoping for a continued bump free recovery.

 

[Lily]

Glad to read this nice update. And that's what I needed and wanted the most post-surgery too, my husband near my side. Continued best wishes

 

[kfay]

Here is the update from today, she had her ablations:


Evidently Cherie had more than one accessory pathway in her heart, and they identified, and ablated, them all. The procedure did NOT take 8 hours......more like six, so that was good. The hardest part of the whole thing is being flat on your back for all that time, and for a couple hours after, so she was very happy when she could get up and WALK!

According to the EP Dr., there is only a 5% chance that the pathways could recur, so it looks like the best news we could have hoped for.

She STILL has the pacer wires attached, and apparently, it is up to the surgeons service to remove them. We're hoping for that, first thing in the morning, as well as the neck line. Dr. Miller wants her to have a few more pictures (with echo) done in the morning, so if all goes as planned.....we're hoping to be out of here by about 3pm?

Then we will go to the Homme's home, rest, & get ready to fly out on Thursday morning. Can't wait!

Thank you, as always, for all your support. We LOVE reading all the guestbook entries, and appreciate you doing that.

 

[malibu82]

Wow....she has been through a lot! Glad to hear she is on her way out the door soon

 

[Greg a]

Great news

Great news

First off, Cherie is out of the hospital! Woo!

It was a long day, that had a long night before it.......we couldn't sleep well, and then, beginning at 4am, it was a steady stream of additional tests, etc.

We can't say enough about Dr. Fletcher Miller. (He was the cardiologist). He came by to visit every day, and did all of Cherie's echo imaging HIMSELF. He really made all of this happen for Cherie, after meeting her in Napa at the echo conference. In fact, he says they're going to use Cherie's case, as one of their "case studies", at a future conference, and also told Cherie that he was GIVING her admission to next year's conference for free.
She was pretty happy about that.

Today, they pulled out the remaining neck line, and also, the pacemaker wires that were attached directly to the heart (they pulled them out from the outside. She could feel them tugging at the heart! Yuck!)

Tonight and tomorrow, we are at our host family's home (John & Martha Homme), and they are taking very good care of us. Thursday morning.....getting on a plane to head West.

I almost forgot.....today was another "first" for Cherie. She had a massage! She's never had one before, but her shoulders & back were so sore, that she gave in. The hospital has massage therapists on staff, and they offer massages, complimentary.
She really appreciated it. Now, she'll probably be wanting to do it all the time!

Thats todays update. We can't believe it's almost over and we get to go home soon. We will let you know when we make it back to Placerville.

Scott and Cherie

Thanks Scott