Rob Blood's Heart Surgery Recovery Fund

Hello there...

My name is Mikki Anderson. And I’m writing this on behalf of my younger brother, Rob Blood. I got a shocking call from his wife, Lisa, on the morning of November 9, 2022. She told me Rob woke her up in the middle of the night. He was on his knees by the bed gasping for air. So she’d just rushed him to the ER, leaving their little son Nicolai (seven) asleep in his bed. She woke up Bobbi, Rob’s oldest daughter, telling her to look after Nico. What else could she do?

Just two weeks earlier, we’d thrown Rob a surprise 60th birthday party at my house. I hadn’t seen him in a month or so and couldn’t help but think to myself that he wasn’t looking well. His face was puffy, and he seemed to have put on quite a bit of weight. But l could never have imagined what lay ahead for him.

Rob was a bit congested on the night of the party. He chalked it up to just getting over a cold. It wasn’t COVID, he assured me. He was still congested, worse, the night Lisa drove him to the emergency room. The ER doctor’s initial thoughts were pneumonia or bronchitis, and he immediately started Rob on an antibiotic. He soon concluded that it was neither, but rather that it was a heart issue. Within a few minutes, Rob was in an ambulance being transferred to a heart center that immediately diagnosed with congestive heart failure. They told Lisa that he was going to need open-heart surgery as soon as they could schedule it with the heart center’s surgical team. Scans revealed three blocked arteries to his heart. Scariest was the “widow maker” artery, which was almost totally blocked.

Things moved very fast then. It was very serious, very intense. Lisa was panicked, and I was, of course, very concerned for them both. It was a long day on he 14th, after five tense days of waiting and hoping. The open-heart surgery lasted a grueling five hours. It seemed much longer to us pacing the halls, awaiting news. News came from the surgeon around 4:30pm. Rob made it through. The bypass was a success.

After a surprisingly short stay in recovery, Rob was released to return home on November 21st just three days before Thanksgiving. You have no idea how thankful I was to have him over for Thanksgiving dinner that year. ... They told us upon his discharge that he’d be good as new and able to return to work in no time; however, six weeks into his continued recovery at home, he sneezed hard, and felt a sharp pain in his chest. Another unscheduled drive to the ER on New Year’s Day, where a CT Scan revealed Rob had fractured his sternum. Now what?

Another two weeks of pain and chest grinding. The surgeon who had performed the bypass prescribed rest: “Go home, lay down, don’t move any more than you absolutely have to, and the adhesions will take place naturally,” By mid January, Rob was back to work.

But on April 3rd, just a couple of months into his “return to normal,” around 10:30 AM, fate made another call on the Bloods. Lisa, who had been home recovering herself for the past several weeks from reconstructive knee surgery, brought Rob lunch. She had barely walked into the office when Rob felt an inexplicable lump in his throat all of a sudden. Lucky for him Lisa was there. No one else was in the office. A sharp pain moved to his back and then down his left leg and up to his arm. Lisa wasted no time calling for an ambulance as a few entering customers clustered around, asking how they could help.

By 11:45 AM, Rob was back in the ER with no feeling or pulse in his left limbs. Within moments, a completely new surgeon took charge and told Rob, “if you want to live, you need surgery NOW”, his second open heart surgery in just four months. This time Rob was suffering from an aortic aneurysm. His aorta, the main heart artery, had begun to separate from where it attached to his heart. Just before going into surgery, the surgeon informed Lisa that this was a very risky procedure during which Rob could either die or suffer a severe stroke. Rob's (type A aortic dissection) surgery took nine hours. The surgeon decided to start fresh by removing the recent scar tissue from the last surgery. The only positive, if anyone could call it that, was that no bone saw was needed. His rib cage never healed together from the sneeze.

Rob’s condition, it was explained to us all later, is rare. And nearly 30% die during surgery. It was necessary during his procedure to induce circulatory arrest (a state of deep medical hypothermia in which the body temperature is dropped to just 60 degrees F, 18 degrees C), stopping both heart and brain function for a full 28 minutes. The aneurysm was repaired. Reconstruction of the aortic arch was imminent. His descending aorta was not and it will require monitoring for the rest of his life.

Rob suffered a watershed stroke during this last operation. That means that blood continued to flow to most parts of his brain but not all, and some brain tissue did not survive. Fortunately, the brain is an amazing organ, and surrounding areas of the brain take over and compensate for tissue that was lost. In this way, with therapy, nearly full brain function can be regained. This explains why two weeks of acute rehab was necessary for Rob post surgery before he could be discharged again.

Initially, it was unclear if Rob would ever work or drive again. Thankfully and amazingly, he defied all odds. After being released from the hospital on May 1st, 2023, Rob kept getting better at home and was finally able to return to work on June 5th. I hoped both Rob and Lisa would seek financial assistance due to him missing work, accruing medical expenses for two open-heart surgeries, and missing house payments, not to mention the prospects of follow-up medical care to come. They have basically exhausted all of their financial resources.

Try as they may to do it on their own and make ends meet without burdening others, this little family needs help. They appreciate the emotional support they've received from genuine, caring individuals during this tough stretch of time. Lisa, Rob, and our family are all very thankful to his doctors, nurses, and all his medical and rehab assistants and therapists. Also to Rob's Employer and co-workers, who have done more than anyone would even imagine doing. Special thanks also to the American Preparatory Academy (where Nicolai goes to school and where Lisa works), which generously donated financial and emotional assistance during this hardship, as well as to Nicolai’s teacher, who helped keep him calm and secure enough to see it as a “BREAKING NEWS” broadcast.

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