10/12/2026
Not sure how to even describe what has been one of the hardest, scratch that, the hardest couple weeks of our lives. Trying to put it into words just seems impossible.
I was scheduled for heart surgery on Sept 28th at 5 am at OSU. They were going to fix a hole and repair my mitral valve for a severe leak. They do these types of things all the time and we knew OSU was the best place for me. On the way to the hospital that morning, I just had a feeling that I needed to tell my family I loved them, so I scheduled texts to automatically send out. Last thing I remember was going into the OR.
Now that I am home recovering, I got a chance to read the surgeons OR notes. Surgery went fine. The hole was fixed. They found a second hole which was then fixed. The mitral valve took a couple tries but they got it repaired as well. Surgery was done, they went out to tell Eric around noon that he could see me in a couple hours and that they were finishing up.
And then…over 6 hours later Eric still hadn’t been able to come back. The OR team had been called back in immediately. According to the surgeon’s notes, when they went to move me from the OR table, the right side of my heart stopped working. They put me on emergency ECMO. I was then on life support for over 24 hours. I remember waking up and being told I could not move because of all the machines hooked to me. I have over 10 incisions, I had a line through an artery on each arm, IVs on each arm and my neck. Tubes coming out of multiple places. My vision was blurry for days, everything hurt, and I was so confused. I don’t really remember a lot until after Thursday. Eric was by my side the entire time, except when my parents and brother came down for the day.
I was finally able to come home this past Wednesday night. Being home and seeing my kids is all I wanted. I am still in a lot of pain. I still have a JP drain. Lots of medications. Lots of resting. I have a long road yet but I am alive and I am improving a little each day. OSU was the exact place I needed to be and they saved my life. I will always be so grateful to them and to everyone for the prayers over the last couple of weeks.
