Practical Joke

A little while ago Danny's nurse came in to take his 8:00 pm Doppler pulse. They use the Doppler on LVAD's because usually a pulse cannot be found with a regular BP cuff. Anyway, the nurse couldn't hear anything with the Doppler so she began to freak a little bit. What's important about that is that currently the room Danny is in is not in the "LVAD wing" because it was full when he was admitted Friday. So the nurses on this hall don't have much, if any, experience with LVAD's and they are all scared of them--by their own admission. When Danny noticed the nurse was worrying that she couldn't hear a Doppler pulse, he said "do you want me to turn my pump back on?" She screamed!!! It was so funny. Danny was laughing so hard it made his chest hurt. He was grabbing his chest and saying "Oh stop, it hurts too much to laugh!"

LVAD practical joke...it would be super crazy if they could somehow make the Doppler's not pick up a sound to mess with the nurses, but they can't. :)

Good news~the word is we are going home tomorrow. Prayerfully this time it will be for longer than 2 days! One of the things we questioned last time was that Danny wasn't discharged on Lasix even though he still had some fluid on him. This time he will go home on Lasix, among his "thousands" of other medicines.

This seems awful and makes me feel a little crazy, but in a lot of ways it's easier and more comforting being here at Ochsner. One thing that was so strikingly hard to deal with was being plugged into AC power at night. Here in the hospital room, Danny can walk everywhere in the room while plugged into the wall. At home, he can reach the bathroom and a little ways into the kitchen. The confinement is just more obvious at home and therefore harder to cope with emotionally. Being around nurses and doctors 24 hours/day gives a feeling of security--even if the current nurses know less about LVAD's than we do!! The LVAD wing is right around the corner though, so help isn't far.

Our prayer is that we will get comfortable and feel safe at home quickly. Ideally Danny will be able to get back to life--with some changes--while waiting for a donor heart to become available. We don't want to live in fear of controller errors, mechanical failures, or power loss. However, those are very valid concerns and therefore need regular prayer!

The Apostle Paul wrote to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1:7:

"...for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power, love, and a sound mind."

 

If we believe that every word in the Bible is truth from the Lord, than we can absolutely pray with an expectancy that God will do what He says. He is good for His word. So, it's pretty simple...when fear consumes us, it's NOT from the Lord. So-we just have to pray in faith that the Lord will replace that fear with His spirit--which is made of, in part, power, love, and a sound mind. Living like that sounds much better than living with fear!!

 

~Tricia

 

The costs associated with LVAD implantation and the future heart transplant are high. If you feel led to help us financially, you can do that by donating money to our paypal account.

 

Go to www.paypal.com

Click on "buy" and then "make a payment".

You will need to enter your email and then ours which is:

helpdannysauer@gmail.com

 

Go Fund Me is another source available to support us financially.

Go to www.gofundme.com and search for "friends of Danny Sauer".

or...

Search for the Facebook page entitled "Friends of Danny Sauer".

This page has a link to www.gofundme.com and also a link to this blog!