"We Love Andrea" was created to update Andrea's friends as she went through a difficult journey. After her second heart transplant when her pulse began to speed up she was given a pacemaker, then a Heart Mate II or LVAD. She was in the Stollery Children's Hospital, then the Mazankowski heart unit in Edmonton, Alberta for 7 months. However, she peacefully died on May 11, 2011 when the rest of her heart and other organs could handle the strain no longer. If you come to this blog, pray for her family and friends, remember to tell your friends you love them, then sign your organ donor card.

Saturday, April 2, 2011

At The RMH


Good Evening
 
Well, tonight we are together at the RMH for night!!  Her bed is saved at the hospital for now, I think this will only be for the weekend.  We changed rooms to get a wheelchair accessible one so we moved our stuff late this afternoon, will need to clean our former room tomorrow sometime.  It seems like a big step to come here for night, so many things to remember.  We brought her meds, supplies, the big heavy power base unit which she is on in the room, same one she had at the hospital, plus many more items too numerous to mention.  We sure hope she will sleep better here, she has not slept all day.  It is a real leap of faith to venture out from the protective support team we have grown used to.  Hopefully this is not premature to come here on a weekend pass, although they told us if it looked like it would not work we could come back to her ward anytime.  We still only have the old lead acid batteries yet which are only good for at best 3 hours.  The new lighter weight batteries are on order along with a new controller, new batteries are lithium ion, some say they get 12 hours before recharging.  I guess I better get back to Andrea and Faye as I'm typing this on a computer on main floor, soon time to get her out of the recliner and back into bed for night.  Goodnight to all.
 
Regards, Maynard 

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1 comment:

  1. AnonymousApril 3, 2011 at 8:28 AM

    I understand what your family is experiencing, my husband needed a Heartmate II as his heart was only functioning 8%, we bought a backpack with wheels to keep his batteries and spare controller in etc, what a difference it made when we received the new lighter batteries, we didnt have to worry anymore about power outages, as he would put a new set of batteries on before bed and sleep in them as we thought what if there was a fire there would be no time to unplug from the power base unit, they lasted 11hours,with the new batteries Andrea and her family wont have to keep checking them to see if she is getting enough power, my husband was on his Heartmate for over a year and is awaiting a heart transplant. It will take some time for Andrea to get stronger as it did for my husband. She will slowly get her appetite back , We pray that Andrea gets her heart transplant soon BC Resident

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