Jeff Cyran

To recap Jeff's story, on Tuesday August 7 Jeff began to experience what felt like severe upper gastro pain in his chest and arms and as the pain became worse decided we needed to head for Mercy hospital and get him checked out.  On the way there he suffered a massive heart attack and lost consciousness. Luckily we were approaching the hospital and emergency got him as quickly as possible. The amazing emergency team at Mercy tried to restart his heart for 45 minutes. Meanwhile, one of the hospital's cardio-thoracic surgeons determined that because of Jeff's age and lack of other health problems, he was a candidate for the use of an ECMO machine to take over the work of his heart and lungs. This is similar to a bypass machine used in surgery, but in this instance it was used as an emergency measure to save his life. Once the machine successfully took over for his heart, they were able to determine that the cause of the heart attack was major plaque blockage of one of the main arteries of his heart. The blockage has been removed and two stents were put in. He was transferred to Strong Memorial in Rochester on Wednesday August 8 because it has one of the biggest ECMO units in the country and has the most cardiac resources for his kind of heart issues. Now that he's home, the good news is that Jeff's heart has been doing really well- he'll need to be on meds to support his heart function forever, but the cardiologist is quite happy with where he is at right now. His wound from being attached to the ECMO machine has taken awhile to heal but is healing rapidly now. The next goal would be for Jeff to do cardio rehab to get him strong enough to return to work and get back to his life. The bad news is that there was damage to his nerves in the leg where the ECMO machine was attached, and this is stopping him from being able to do cardio rehab. The official diagnosis from the neurologist after extensive testing is Ischemic Monomelic Neuropathy caused by the lack of blood flow to his foot while he was in the hospital. Because he was out of it for so long, he was unable to tell the caregivers about any feelings of numbness that would have alerted them to what was happening to prevent the damage. So now Jeff is experiencing alternating numbness and extremely intense nerve pain in his foot. They are trying to manage the pain with medications but it is very difficult to manage and Jeff is in pain a lot. The neurologist believes that time will heal the neuropathy, but unfortunately it could take a lot of time, and he can't clear Jeff to go back to work or to drive while his foot is in this condition. SO we are hopeful there is a light at the end of the tunnel but are having to settle in for what may be a longer healing process than we hoped. Plus, cardio rehab cannot progress until the foot improves a lot. Because Jeff cannot work, our family is dependent on disability income which is ten percent of Jeff's income. We are asking for donations to get us through the next month or two of bills since we do not know when he will recover enough to be cleared for work, and we have to take one month at a time. The money will be used for bills, mortgage, food, etc. to keep our family afloat until Jeff can return to work. Even the smallest amount would be appreciated and we greatly appreciate all the support. Love to you all.