Healing Kate’s heart. (Literally)

As many of you already know Kate was diagnosed with congestive heart failure 15 days ago. As a result of this she was transferred from Holy Family here in Haverhill to the Cardiac ICU at St Elizabeth’s in Brighton. She was there for 10 days. During her time there things got really scary, on too many occasions in my estimation. Her blood pressure kept bottoming out several times. The First episode happened when she was in the ER at which point she became completely unresponsive. Several of the nurses admitted that they didn’t think they were going to be able to bring her back. After day ONE in the ER and then 10 more days in the ICU. We were finally able to bring her home. However, after only one night at home her blood pressure dropped dangerously low again and after a lot of frustrated tears( mainly on Kate’s part) it was decided to have her to Lafayette nursing home in Marblehead. It seem as an option not as bad as her being in the hospital. Unfortunately it was clear that it was unsafe for Kate to be alone.bad enough to be really concerning. We decided that perhaps it would be a good idea for her to be at an assisted living facility for, what we hoped would be, a very short stay. It was short alright. (After an absolutely horrendous night stay mainly because she was just hysterical with emotion. This was the place where she used to come and trick or treat with her family every year! This is the only place where Kate can remember her family being truly happy. She said it still smelled the same and being trapped in it was unbearable.)I brought her back home this afternoon. We’re hoping that VNA services with start on Monday!

Right now besides the fear of Kate’s blood pressure bottoming out we’re terrified of the bills that came with Kate’s tumor over the summer but NOW we’re also going to have to deal with 2 ambulance rides, TEN DAYS in the ICU, all these new and expensive medications. She needs new precautionary things in the apartment we held off on getting an adjustable bed over the summer because funds had to go other places but now it doesn’t really sound like an option. We both know that things are tight for everybody but anything would mean so much! Just so that Kate can spend her energy on getting herself stronger instead of having to dwell and worry over the magnitude of this as well. As I had mentioned over the summer the reason we are so worried and have done these gofundme’s is because Kate receives Medicare from the state but because she is younger than retirement age she doesn’t receive all the benefits that come with Medicare!

Thank You EVERYONE who visited, called, txt’d, messaged, FaceTimed or passenger pigeon’ed lol. You made everyday brighter for Kate!!