Thursday, September 05, 2019

Keith, six months post-problems

I posted on Facebook, on the day, and we delivered a thank-you note to UNMH, with a photo.
The next day we took a similar note to the fire station, because it's the day A shift was to be there, but they were off at a meeting, so we left the card with someone who hadn't been involved, and he said he would put it in the kitchen.

At facebook there are likes and comments, but here's the text and the photos I put up on the 3rd:




Today, it has been six months since Keith's cardiac arrest. By the end of March 3, he'd had three of them. March 12, he had another one. That's beyond the point at which statistics are kept, it seems, but he's alive and well.

SCA friends helped with quick CPR (and taking off his chain mail before EMTs got there); EMTs got him going the second time, and made it to the hospital with him alive; emergency room and ICU got him through to evening, and wired and tubed him up to be refrigerated a bit and in an induced coma, pretty much, for a few days.

I still get scared, again, when I think about it. He was in ICU for sixteen days and other levels of hospitalization for three weeks after that. Lots of people helped keep him going.

He's swimming in the mornings, working in the yard, playing music, starting to sing around the house, and walking up past Tramway and back again.

He took out the old juniper bush by the mailbox, and because the dirt was stirred up and there was sunshine, morning glory seeds from past years got happy! I would've just pulled them out, because it was so late in the summer, but Keith keeps building them something to climb on.

They don't seem to know it's too late, so I guess I was wrong. :-) Down below the morning glories are lots of iris and day lillies Keith has brought up there from too-shady parts of the yard. They will probably do fine in the spring, and might be able to co-exist with the morning glories, having different seasons.

Keith takes baby Kirby for cruises up the park to swing, again. We got a bigger stroller, used, so it's easier for both of them.

Sorry I don't have a Keith-and-Ivan photo to go with this. Ivan's a blur when he comes over. :-) Very fast. Maybe he'll slow down some as Keith continues to speed up.

1 comment:

Sandra Dodd said...

When I came to post about the passing of Mary Beth Whidden, I saw that this post about Keith's six month recovery was still a draft. Here's why (and I pulled this line):

"I'll put that photo and those notes below, for the record (so Keith and the kids can look back at it someday)."

I was wanting to leave the text of what was in the cards to the ICU and fire department here. I wish I had. :-)
Now my best hope is that I'll come across them again and remember to bring them, for the record. I didn't photocopy, but I should have the text somewhere, and there was a photo of Keith and baby Kirby, and a copy of the calendar of treatment and hospital stays (four places at UNMH and then the rehab hospital).