April 28, 2012

April 28th, will forever be a day that we won't forget. That morning we woke up at 6 to get ready for a 10K race that we had signed up for. Ashley, our babysitter got to the house at 6:45 and we left. We drove to City Centre in Memorial City where the race was being held. We lined up a little before 8 and waited for the race to start. I was running to qualify for the Houston 1/2 marathon in January, which meant I had to make a certain time. Justin, was training for a triathlon and wasn't worried about his time. Since Justin wasn't running for time we didn't run together. I finished the race and waited at the finish line for Justin. After, about 20 minutes, I went into a store to call him to make sure I didn't miss him at the finish line(my cell phone was in his car and he had the car key). His phone went to voice mail. I went back to the finish line and waited some more before I went back into the store to call him. This time I left him a message, saying I would meet him at the car. I walked to the car and waited some more before asking two girls if I could borrow their phone. I call and he doesn't answer. I am about to text him when the girls phone starts ringing. The girl hands me the phone, where an EMT proceeds to tell me, Justin is in the hospital and I need to come. The two girls, who I don't even know their names drove me to the hospital where the EMT was waiting for me. The moment the paramedic started talking to me, my whole world fell apart. He told me, Justin went into Cardiac Arrest and collapsed while running. Several runners stopped and administered CPR until the ambulance came. The paramedics had to shock Justin 5 times and intubate him. For some unknown reason, I was taken back to the ER room where they were working on Justin. I was in the room less than a minute before they walked me back out because I was so uncontrollable. I was able to retrieve Justin's phone and call family and friends and let them know what happened. After an hour and half in the ER, they transferred Justin up to the ICU. Before being allowed to see him again, the nurse told me they were putting him in a 24 hour medically induced hypothermia coma. Cooling the body gives the brain a break while other organs compete for oxygen. Hypothermia protects the brain cells from damage. Seeing him in the coma, intubated and a ton of IV's and tubes was too much to take. Thank goodness, my friend Lindsay was with me and helped me. I proceeded to talk to many doctors, giving family medical history, answering questions and asking questions. I kept asking "How did this happen?", "What is wrong?". The first 24 hours were by far the hardest of not knowing what would happen when/if he woke up, constantly replaying the morning over and over in my head and thinking, I'm too young to be a widow. After meeting and talking to the cardiologist, he informed us Justin had a weak heart and his left ventricle was enlarged. The internal medicine Dr. informed us Justin had pneumonia and was starting him on antibiotics to fight the infection. By the time I had made it back to the waiting room, there had to be about 30 family and friends waiting hear about Justin. The only thing left to do was wait until they brought Justin out of the coma. I had a check-off list in my head of everything he needed to do, wake up, talk, move his body, etc. At 12 pm on Sunday, they started the warming process where they raised his body temperature from 91 to 97 degrees. They raised his temperature 1/2 degree every 2 hours. By 10 pm he was at normal body temperature and we had to wait. At 11, I noticed he was moving his forehead a little bit. At first, I thought I was seeing things but our friend Chad also noticed it. That was HUGE for us. Over the next several hours he squeezed our hands and opened his eyes. Another HUGE step! The next morning(Monday), Justin was able to communicate with us by blinking his eyes and squeezing our hands. He was still intubated as he wasn't fully breathing on his own. He was also, still on a lot of medicine to stabilize his blood pressure and heart rate. The goal was to slowly take him off of everything. We ended up having to restrain his hands, as he kept trying to pull the intubation tube out. Early Tuesday morning(2 am), Justin managed to pull his tube out. I'm still not sure how he did it, but he was determined. He was very agitated and confused which was to be expected. Every 2 minutes he continued to ask "What happened?" I would tell him, "You were running, you fell down and hit your head". I couldn't go into very much detail because he would ask again 2 minutes later. We asked him several questions to check his memory, what year is it? He responded "2010". Who is your boss? "Rick Monical(his boss in 2010)". Who is the president? "Obama". He knew friends and family and the kids name but had trouble with his short term memory and also had a slight slur. By Tuesday night, he was off all medication, feeding tube and suction tube. On Wednesday, he was a lot more responsive and talkative which caused his breathing to get shallow and low. The nurses decided no more visitors were allowed so that he could get his rest and work on his breathing. Also on Wednesday, Justin was able to get out of bed for the first time. They sat him in a chair for awhile and worked with his legs to regain some of the muscle he lost. Thursday, he had another CT scan to check for any fracture's and breaks in his neck because they hadn't been able to get a good scan when he was admitted into the hospital. The scan came back clear and they were able to remove his neck brace. He also had a heart catherization done to find out why he went into Sudden Cardiac Death on Saturday. The results showed he had Cardiomyopathy, which is the weakening of the heart. An Electro-cardiologist came and talked to us about Justin getting a defibrillator implanted in his chest. After, explaining everything to us, his surgery was scheduled for the next day, Friday. He also gave us some surreal statistics: 350,000-400,000 people a year have sudden cardiac death. Only 7% live and 3% are not in a vegetative state. Justin was very lucky to be in the 3%. By Friday, Justin's memory continued to get better but he would at times still say it was "2010". The procedure only took about an hour and everything went well. Saturday, Justin was doing well, so they moved us out of ICU and into a regular room. The new room had a shower which is the only thing Justin wanted since he had woken up. He was able to take a hot shower which made him feel 100% better as well as put on regular clothes. By noon on Sunday, we were being discharged!!! With everything that Justin had gone through, I expected that he would be in the hospital for at least a couple of weeks. It was surreal that we were being discharged only 8 days after his accident.
Since being home, Justin has made almost a complete recovery. He continues to get stronger everyday as does his memory. He still doesn't remember much about the week in the hospital and I doubt he ever remembers the day of the race, which might be a good thing. As, for me, I remember everything which at times I wish I didn't. Seeing him in the ER and in the coma with so many tubes will forever be imprinted in my mind. I try not to think about it for too long as I will start crying and start thinking of the "what if's". I am so eternally grateful for the runner's who stopped and performed CPR as that and by the grace of God, is the only reason Justin is still alive. Three of the woman who helped Justin on that Saturday morning, came to the hospital to check on him several times which was so very nice of them.
A huge thanks to our friends and family who came everyday to visit or called, texted, emailed and brought food and coffee. I'm so very grateful for my dad who stayed every night with the kids and got them up in the morning and took them to school as well as cook and clean the house.