The Weekend

Here's Ford enjoying story time with our friend Christine, Friday morning.

By the end of the week Ford was almost back to his cheery old self. We still hadn't got any smiles out of him but there was a definite twinkle in his eye on Friday as he enjoyed the relative comfort of his old CCCU routine.

They ended up delaying Ford's extubation until Saturday morning because an ominous x-ray showed his left lung was almost completely collapsed and swamped in fluid. Nobody was expecting a miraculous lung recovery, even though the transplant greatly reduced the compression that his old swollen heart had been applying to his airways, but it was still a little disheartening to hear that his left lung has slowly been getting worse since the operation and is now back to its dirty old tricks. So they decided to give him another day of rest and diruetics (to try and draw out some of the accumulated fluid) and then went ahead and pulled the tube. Ready or not!

This is Ford about 30 seconds after they extubated him - a rather unceremonious event considering the length of his intubation (4+ months) and his lack of practice at breathing. I wasn't able to capture the look on his face in those first few minutes but he was definitely thinking something along the lines of: WTF!? Then he decided to give us all a run for our money and quit breathing, which sparked a flurry of panicked activity as they prepared to reintubate and call the whole thing off. But with the swift intervention of bum pats and a couple soothing doses of aromatic, vaporized adrenaline (Yup, that's right: vaporized adrenaline), we managed to coax him back among the living. Then they put him on a Cpap mask, which is probably one of his least favourite ICU toys and sedated him to ease the transition.

Here he is sporting the mask, his soother, his pacing wires, and his new scars - our sweet little post-human steampunk


On Friday Christa and I were granted a meeting with the pathologists who will be dissecting Ford's old heart and analyzing it for the record books. Prompted by a family we met in Edmonton who's daughter had her transplant a few months ago I had asked around for the opportunity to see Ford's old heart after the transplant. I assumed it was a normal request and was surprised to learn that we were the only ones who've asked in recent years and no one could remember if there was any particular protocol that had to be observed. It took a few days, but eventually we got the green light. Since nothing is sacred to me, I'm going to share some of the photos we took so you can also have the chance to see what Ford's bum heart looks like.

Click the links below if you're not feeling squeamish or feint of heart, hehe:

Heart 1

Heart 2

Heart 3

Heart 4

I have to say the experience was a little underwhelming, but that's because I was anticipating some serious gore. I wasn't prepared for how small, tidy and compact it was. Still (and I suppose this goes without saying), holding Ford's heart in our hands was incredible and I will never forget the moment. We were given a pretty comprehensive anatomy lesson by the pathologist, who seemed thrilled to have the chance to walk us through this part of his job, and were able to see much of what was wrong with it, including some of the sutures and shunts from his previous surgeries. Amazing!

Ford continues to do really well. He seems to be adjusting to the Cpap and was apparently smiling and laughing for Christa this afternoon. It's amazing how quickly things are changing now, despite the trouble with his lungs.