Overwhelmed by the awesome developments of the past day, I have to stop and decide where to begin my account.
Well, it turns out that the timing of Mombo’s surgery had to do mainly with her choice to move ahead promptly. After some initial uncertainty, the procedure was planned for the next morning. Because her valve leakage did not justify repair or replacement, it was possible to use the “beating heart” technique—open-heart surgery that does not require the problematic heart-lung machine. I think this stroke of good fortune made all the difference over the next 24 hours. Can you believe it? While her heart continued to beat, Dr. Martin performed two by-pass grafts plus a mammary-artery splice. Amazing! He used a new less-invasive method to harvest an adequate section of vein from her leg for the grafts. She received one transfusion to keep her h-crit from dropping below the 30s.
Dana and I stayed at the hospital until 10 pm, and we got to see her twice in the ICU. During the second time, I could tell she was responding to our stimuli, even though she was still under the anaesthetic. Today Joan reported that at 3:30 am this morning, the ICU nurse woke her up to tell her that they’d taken Mombo off the vent. Even though it wasn’t regular visiting hours, she got to see that Mombo was awake and talking a bit. By 5:30 she was sitting up in a chair, speaking to Joan again. She says Mombo could remember her, me, and Dana being there at 9:30 the night before. Rachel came to visit at 9:30 am. According to Joan: ”They wouldn’t let us go back for a little while and we didn’t know why. Well, it was because they were taking out all her tubes and getting her ready to go to a room on the floor! We couldn’t believe it. This truly is a miraculous recovery. In less than 24 hours after they took her into surgery, she was back in her room.”
As I write, Mombo’s vitals remain good, and we’re getting ready to head back to Lexington for a visit.