Update on Kayla

Kayla's trip to the hospital has been....eventful. The took a left-right side biopsy and found that she has transplant coronary arterial disease. Her arteries are getting stringy and clogging up at an accelerated rate. It's a frequent life-threatening complication that happens with long-term survivors of heart transplants. Unfortunately, there is nothing they can do. The heart cannot be saved. She needs another heart transplant to live.

They have been treating her with heparin (a blood thinner) via IV. She is also getting subcutaneous injections of another blood thinner. Her risk of another stroke or heart attack are very high. Her arteries are almost fully blocked now. They have also added Lipitor to her medicine regimen. They have also scheduled her for surgery on Monday to get a defibrillator put in. They implant it just inside the skin in the chest wall, next to the heart.  There is a tiny line that leads into the heart and it detects if the rhythm goes awry. It all sounds pretty scary and intimidating to me.

I feel terrible for not being able to visit her yet. I had midterms all last week, and then I started feeling "off" on Thursday, then worse into Friday. I was full-blown ill yesterday. I have a sinus infection and had a fever last night of 102. So on the one hand it's really good that I didn't go, I would have hated to get her sick on top of everything else. It's strange though. When things are really bad she calls me for support. Now that she's had lots of friends visiting her, I get pushed to the back. I try not to take it personally, she's immensely popular after all. I just feel like this happens every time though. I don't know, maybe it's just the sinus infection talking.