When two people decide to get married, they assume that things will continue on as they were forever. While I have no doubt that we both thought that “this will be fine” we didn’t think about what could possibly be thrown at us in the last two years. I will say this though, if I ever doubted our connection before, I never will again. Through Hell and high water, we are there for each other (not without its faults of course, marriage is a tough).
As many of you know, Cory “died” twice last June. Like, actually died and his heart stopped and his organs were starting to fail. Those of you that could make it out to see him saw that deadpan sadness in the nurses’ eyes; they’d seen this before. Those of you that saw me saw that hopeless wreck that had given up on everything and didn’t know what day it was let alone what I was supposed to do for our family (it’s all pets, btw).
There has been some serious Hell and high water this last two years (almost to the day, February 25th, 2021). The day they gave the diagnosis and I was sleeping in the hospital room, the night they handed me his ring, the day I gave it back. The MANY times he walked out of St. Luke’s. The surgery, the life vest, the panic, the hopeless and the hopeful. The things in this blog do not even come close to covering the anxiety I’ve had, the sleepless nights, the pouring over bills, the constant worry of how we are going to live our lives. It doesn’t explain the yogurt shots I brought to him so that he could keep down his meds, the panic I felt when I saw his name pop up on my phone , the phone calls I’ve made, the advance directive he signed. My worst fears looking me right in the face just a couple years after we got married. I wake up several times every night just to make sure he is still breathing. Some of you have seen it first hand how bad it got; for him, for me, for us both.
But, my anxiety needs to find a new home. His heart is healing.
When Cory was in the hospital last June, I asked when he would get another Echo. There was no point, they told us; his heart would not heal. Both sides of his heart were now failing and even an LVAD couldn’t help him. He had an appointment in December and they made plans to start the transplant process again. As you may remember, there are like 10,000 tests he needs to pass to get on that list (it’s like 16). But to start, they scheduled an echo and a stress test this last week.
His ejection fraction went from 17% to 40%. He is not even close to making any list. (For all you non-medical folks a regular ejection fraction, or the amount of blood your heart pushes out, is about 50-75%). His heart his healing. It’s getting stronger. They told us it wasn’t possible. I say this again because when he was on dialysis and in a coma I was told he was never going to make it out of the hospital (this is when I called you all to come say goodbye). And not only is he without dialysis and very much alive, but he is actually healing.
Cory has been joking with me since December that his New Year’s Resolution was to not have Heart Failure anymore. A stupid joke that I dismissed several times on Wednesday. But then he called me, “I kinda don’t have heart failure anymore”. He was crying, I was crying, and then we went and got him some raw oysters.
I think of it as “remission” more than anything, because he still does have heart failure and that will not change, but we really don’t have to worry about it for a long time. My anxiety needs to find a new home (I say it again because we are both in a weird space).
This life has thrown some weird things at us in the last two years. For those of you not on my Facebook, we lost our dog in December. Fen was an amazing girl, but her seizure disorder got the best of her after all at 11 years old. We adopted a rescue Border Collie in January (we’re a two dog kind of house) and Hati (like Hattie) has been testing my limits for weeks now (my limits, not Cory’s, she loves him and does everything he says). But, after everything that happens, good and bad, we soldier on.
Cory has an appointment in a few months, they are talking about lowering his medications (seriously!!) . He has another Echo in 6 months, and we will see how things are going.
I want to thank everyone following this for all the support; emotionally, financially, medically, and everything else. Even if you just watched me melt down in my house.
I know that I could not have done this without you all.
I really love having good news instead of bad news. <3
