Your Heart Beats for Him: A Caregiver’S Heart Transplant Journey

By Pamela Wareham Washnock

If youre the spouse, caregiver or loved one of someone who needs a heart transplant, what should you expect?

Pamela Washnock fills a void in the existing literature by sharing her inspirational story of taking care of her husband, Bob, who was diagnosed with abnormal heart rhythms in 2000.

If Bobs heart were to beat too fast, he could pass out and never wake up. Fortunately, an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator works well for many years, detecting abnormal rhythms and giving his heart a shock when needed.

But in 2011, Pamela learns Bob will need a new heart. At first, no suitable match can be found. Doctors insert a left ventricular assist device into his chest, or LVAD, which is a mechanical pump that helps a weakened heart pump blood.

When Bob finally gets a new heart, life remains hardand in some waysgets even worse. He must take a variety of medications, all of which affect him in different ways.

See the journey of a heart transplant patient through a caregivers eyes, and find out what obstacles you may need to overcome if your loved one has a heart problem.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abbott Press
• Release date: Aug 31, 2017
• ISBN: 9781458221261

Pamela Wareham Washnock

Pamela Wareham Washnock was born in Fond Du Lac, Wisconsin, and raised in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan “Yooper”. She attended Michigan Tech University in Houghton, where she met her husband, Bob. She is a real estate agent and lives with her husband in Tucson, Arizona.

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Copyright © 2017 Pamela Washnock.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4582-2126-1 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4582-2127-8 (sc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017912745

Abbott Press rev. date: 08/31/2017

Contents

Acknowledgements

Dedication

Your Heart Beats For Him

Preface

Chapter 1:    How It All Began

Chapter 2:    Life Leading Up To Transplant

Chapter 3:    LVAD Surgery

Chapter 4:    Waiting For A Donor Heart

Chapter 5:    The New Heart

Chapter 6:    Going Home

Chapter 7:    Back To Work

Epilogue:  One Year and Beyond Post Transplant

Death Was Not An Option

Medications

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank my good friend Candy Bravo for her time and effort in helping me write this book, which started out as only notes from a journal I kept while Bob was going through this journey.

Also, a big thank you, which doesn’t seem quite enough, to the Doctors, Nurses, and Staff of the Mayo Hospital Heart Transplant Team and ICU Team in Phoenix, Arizona, for their excellent care and kindness. Without them, Bob would not be here today.

Thank you to David Kazalski who created the cover, which is the art genre called Steam Punk.

I would also like to thank all our family and friends, for their prayers, cards, gifts and flowers.

Last but not least, I need to Thank God. I guess He just wasn’t through with Bob yet; He has more for him to do in this lifetime.

Dedication

This story would not have a happy ending if it were not for the selfless, generous, heart-wrenching decision by a family to allow their loved one’s heart to be donated when life was no longer a viable option.

We don’t know who you are, but if not for you, I would not have my husband, our children and grandchildren would not have their father and grandfather, and our friends would have lost a wonderful man.

Please accept my sincere undying gratitude, and may you find some comfort in knowing that this heart is strong and so dearly accepted to prolong life and happiness.

Thank you

Your Heart Beats For Him

My name is Pam. I want to share my story with others who might be facing what my husband Bob and I have been living with for the past several years - the ups and downs of declining health, to the need for a heart transplant, and through the process of transplant and life beyond. My hope is that if I can help one other person to understand what it was like, and to know there is hope and light at the end of a very long tunnel, then my effort will be worth it. You must understand that our experience may be different from others.

There are several books written from the standpoint of the heart transplant patient. My book is dedicated to the spouses of the patients, and the Care Givers, because you have a difficult journey ahead of you, too.

Preface

Bob and I met in college at Michigan Tech University; he was a member of a fraternity and we had three fun years of college together. I first noticed Bob in golf class, and then later met him through mutual friends. During his last year of college I moved to Lower Peninsula of Michigan, but we still dated through his graduation. My mother threw Bob a graduation party, which his mother and sister attended. We really had a great relationship, or so I thought.

After graduation, Bob took a job in Utah, and we drifted apart and had other relationships. Bob had two children from his marriage, and I remained single. We rediscovered each other during the fall of 1981, when Bob located me through mutual friends, got my phone number, and eventually called me. The rest is history - a love story for real. Bob and I were married in June of 1983.

CHAPTER 1

How It All Began

Bob was a vibrant, active man during his years leading up to this story. He was a hockey referee for high school and pee-wee leagues, an avid snow and water skier, rode motorcycles, drove a Corvette, light drinker, non-smoker except for an occasional cigar. He was a healthy man.

Bob went skiing with a friend in Colorado one winter day in 1997, and started having a hard time catching his breath. He thought it was altitude sickness. Cutting his skiing trip short, he returned to Tucson where we lived at that time, and his condition did not improve. We decided to visit his doctor, who asked many questions such as his travel history, family history, and exposure to any virus or other sicknesses. Initial diagnosis was heart problems, but we couldn’t figure out what was causing it; we later discovered there was heart disease on his mother’s side of the family.

Under a cardiologist’s care, we began our long journey. Bob was given medications for a few years, which helped his heart function. But in 2000, the doctors detected abnormal heart rhythms and said that if his heart were to start beating too fast he could pass out and not wake up; in other words, it could be fatal. So an ICD device was implanted, which would detect abnormal rhythms and shock the heart back to a normal rhythm. He lived with this device for many years, and had to give up motorcycle riding, because if he were to get shocked while on his bike, it could be fatal. When he would get shocked, it was like a mule kicking him in the chest; he was once shocked while sitting on a bar stool and it knocked him off the stool. Needless to say, motorcycle riding was no longer an activity he could do safely, so he sold his bike and bought a 2002 yellow Corvette convertible. Pretty good trade, as far as I was concerned.

Over the years, Bob was airlifted from small towns we lived in to larger cities with better health care. Several times he had oblations, a procedure where an electrode is inserted into your heart from a peripheral artery. Then the doctor carefully burns areas in the heart that cause arrhythmias. Medications and oblations wouldn’t strengthen his heart, but could lengthen the time before needing a transplant.

CHAPTER 2

Life Leading Up To Transplant

Finally in 2009, Bob’s EP (Cardiac Electrophysiologist-the science of elucidating, diagnosing and treating the electrical activities of the heart) recommended he contact the Mayo Clinic in Phoenix, Arizona, for an evaluation for a heart transplant. After talking with the transplant team, it was determined that Bob was still too healthy at this point, but at least he was on the books, so to speak, and they were familiar with him if and when the time should come.

We were living about five hours from Phoenix and would make several trips to doctors over a two-year period. Then the company Bob was working for transferred him closer to Phoenix, and we bought a home in Sun City Grand located in Surprise, Arizona. Bob worked at a mine about 1 ½ hours away, and he would commute to the mine during the week and then be at our home in Surprise on the weekends.

A couple more years passed, working, traveling, and living life. In August of 2011, Bob was starting to become more tired, shortness of breath was getting worse, and he was having a hard time walking just a matter of feet. He would come home for lunch and then take a nap to get him through the rest of the day.

In September of 2011, we returned to the Mayo Clinic, and it was determined that he would need a new heart, so he began the process of testing, questions, and evaluations to determine if he was a good candidate for a transplant. During this time Bob continued to work full time. We really didn’t realize the extent or severity of his situation at this time, although he was always so very tired.

We had planned a trip to Las Vegas for the end of October to see America’s Got Talent show, thinking that if he couldn’t walk we would use a wheelchair to get him around, but at an office visit just the day before we were to leave the doctor said, NO, I do not recommend you go to Las Vegas, and you’re lucky I don’t put you in the hospital right now. He also informed Bob that he was not to return to work, but go home for the weekend and, We will see you on Monday.

Wow, were we in shock, scared - what were we going to do? We knew he couldn’t live this way, and something had to be done. We talked about going on disability, but Bob said he could use his vacation time for now. So we didn’t make any decisions about his job or disability at this time.

When we returned on Monday, they admitted Bob to the hospital because his heart function was extremely low. I believe he had a 7-10% ejection fraction, a number that determines how well the heart is pumping, with a normal person having maybe 50-75%. He was given a PICC Line (peripherally inserted central catheter), which delivers medication closer to the heart in his case. This was to help his heart function, and it seemed to be helping.

While in the hospital, Bob finished the evaluation for a Transplant, and was approved and listed on the Transplant List on November 9th, 2011, as a 2-B status, not the highest on the list, because his heart was being helped by the IV medication. The highest status on the list is a 1-A. He remained in the hospital for a couple of weeks, so I would go home every night, a forty-five minute drive each way, and return in the morning.

In the middle of his hospital stay, our home at the mine site needed to be cleaned out. Bob was in the hospital under great care so this was a good time for me to pack up our home; it took me a couple of days with help from friends. We packed the home, sold most of our furniture, and hired a moving company to move our belongings to a storage unit close to our home in Surprise. Since we couldn’t afford to take care of two homes not knowing when Bob would be going back to work, this had to be done.

When he was released from the hospital, we went home with an IV Pump, that I had learned how to change and flush out the lines, and also how to change the IV bag. Home Health Care came by daily to check on Bob - take his vitals, blood pressure, temperature, check his PICC Line, and to change the dressing every three days. This continued, going to the doctor and changing the IV medications, for about seven weeks, until Christmas of 2011. Just before Christmas they really wanted to admit Bob to the hospital, but said they would wait a few days.

December 25, 2011, was not a happy day, as Bob slept most of the day. He did manage to open gifts, but he did not feel like eating since he had no appetite, due to his poor heart function. Looking back, he probably should have been in the hospital, but after all, it was Christmas, and Bob loved Christmas time. I received a tablet as a gift, but I really wasn’t sure if I wanted one or not. Little did I know how it would help keep me sane over the next weeks and months to come!

CHAPTER 3

LVAD Surgery

On December 26th, we woke up and Bob was not feeling well at all, so we called the Clinic and off we went to the Emergency Room. The IV medication he was on was not working as well as planned, so he was admitted to the hospital, and we were informed they wanted to insert a Heart Pump to help his heart while he was waiting for a new heart. We were all hoping that a donor heart would come over the next week so that we didn’t need to insert the pump, but it didn’t.

Bob had the pump inserted, and after surgery was in ICU recovering. He was now moved up on the Transplant List to a 1-A, the highest you can be on the list, since he was now in critical condition. This was such a trying time for me, waiting to see what would happen, praying that a donor heart would become available, but yet again knowing someone had to lose a loved one in order for Bob to live.

If a heart did not come in