When we got back to the hospital at 6 pm yesterday, nurses told us that Dad's heart had stopped another twice and that they'd revived him with CPR. By the time the night nurse came on duty, Dad’s heart had zeroed out ten times yesterday: the heartbeat just stopped for several excruciating seconds and then always started up again on its own. The doctor in charge spoke to us and said that Dad's heart didn't seem to be coping any more and that they didn’t know how long it could keep it up; that one of the times it stopped, it probably wouldn’t be able to start up again. He told us he thought it was extremely likely that Dad would die during the night, and that they felt it was wisest not to do any more CPR. And so we settled down for a gruelling 13 hour watch by Dad's bedside - a traumatic vigil where we watched his heart stop eight more times.. making a total of eighteen cardiac arrests in a twenty four hour period.
It seemed like the longest night of our lives. Sometimes we simply watched Dad sleep. Sometimes he woke up in the night and "spoke" to us (to the extent that you can speak with a ventilator tube in your vocal cords - which meant that he was trying to form sentences and we were trying to lip read.) Sometimes it was easy to discern what he was saying - like when we said, “We love you very much,” and he very clearly said, “I love you too.” ... or when he mouthed "thank you" after we helped him to drink some water from the little sponge sticks that they use to moisten the patient’s mouth. At other times, though, our lip reading skills were inadequate and we weren’t able to understand what he was trying to say to us.
Time after time, in the darkness of the night, we thought that we had lost him and that it was time to say goodbye. The monitor would begin to bleep dramatically, the ECG reading would plummet to zero and flatline. Each time, I would ask him, "Dad, are you wanting to leave us now, or are you still going to come back to us?" And every single time, he rallied, the heart rate went back to normal again and he somehow communicated to us that he wasn't ready to give up the fight yet. Sometimes there were long periods between "episodes" - of two or three hours where he was simply sleeping peacefully. At those times I also felt a deep sense of peace, and I would simply declare over him the scripture I felt God had given me in the afternoon (from Psalm 138): The Lord will preserve your life and make you strong hearted. After the fourteenth arrest, my Mum couldn't handle it any more. Watching your husband "die" eight times over is a slow and painful torture, and we persuaded her to lie down for an hour, even though she knew she wouldn't be able to sleep. The hospital staff were very compassionate, giving her blankets and a private "relatives' room" to lie down in.
Around the fifteenth or sixteenth cardiac arrest, in the quietness of the darkened ICU, my brother noticed that the attacks always came on after something was introduced to Dad's system - like his intravenous antibiotic or the medicine for his stomach. The night nurse had begun to realise this too, so he phoned the doctor early in the morning and a decision was made to withhold Dad's 6 am meds until the doctors could investigate further. When the new doctor in charge came on duty, we explained our observations to him. We pointed out that the central intravenous line goes into his shoulder, very close to his heart and said we wondered perhaps if his heart just isn’t able to take the onslaught any more. My brother and I asked whether it would make a difference to move the IV line to the other side of Dad's body so that the meds don't affect his heart so directly. The doctor did a print out of the monitor readings for our dramatic nighttime vigil - showing in graphic form each episode where Dad's heartbeat had stopped, sometimes for ten to fifteen seconds, and once for as long as twenty five seconds. Then he called in the cardiologist to analyse the printouts and check Dad's heart.
When the cardiologist asked to speak with us, we didn't know what to expect. She showed us the ECG printouts, and what she said next sent our hearts soaring again. "You must have had a terrible night," she said,"but let me assure you that there is absolutely nothing wrong with his heart." Yes, it stopped beating... but it always started again, and Dad wouldn't have "come back" to us sixteen times without help, if his heart wasn't strong. He has a condition called A.F. (atrial fibrillation - a form of cardiac arrhythmia) which was diagnosed back in 2005, but which is common in elderly people and isn't life threatening. The cardiologist assured us that the traumatic episodes of our nightime vigil had not done any harm to Dad and that the problem was totally "fixable."
They also did a chest x-ray to see how the central IV line was positioned and, sure enough, it was very close to the heart. It's quite possible that it was simply the sensation of cold liquids entering his body that was causing the heart to go into shock momentarily. This morning, a doctor is working to reposition the line and to do some "test runs" with medication to see if everything is back to normal again. But everyone keeps telling us, "his heart is strong" and his heartbeat is mostly quite strong compared to the average. What a joy it was to hear the cardiologist say this, when I had just spent half the night declaring over Dad that, "It is God who preserves your life and who makes you strong hearted!!"
Dad has a slight lung infection at the moment (which physiotherapists are working to clear) and still needs medication for pain, and antibiotics to keep fighting the general infection from the original sepsis. But generally speaking, doctors are satisfied that he is "comfortable" and 'stable' now. My Mum, brother and I have come home to get washed and get something to eat, and we'll be heading back to the hospital again in the afternoon.
