Randy's Heart Surgery Recovery

Hi, I'm Randy last seven months ago, I found out I was a Type II diabetic. I have a very physical job and was getting plenty of exercise and I adjusted my diet to reduce carbs and follow my doctors suggestions. However, my diabetic hornet took a turn for the worse as just a couple of weeks after my diagnosis, I began vomiting and was unable to eat or drink much for more than a month. I lost 30 pounds and when I started to feel better I worked hard to watch my diet and regain my strength.

Sometime in January, however, I started losing strength again, feeling tired all the time and just not "feeling like myself." I started feeling nauseous as well and was having a hard time eating and drinking without vomiting again.

I visited urgent care once and was given medicine for a cough I had developed and was told they wouldn't test for anything else since I am diabetic. So I went home and continued to feel worse and worse to the point of having mental fog and barely being able to walk up the stairs. I was exhausted after a shower and could hardly eat or drink.

I finally consent to go to Emergency and was admitted to the hospital with hypoxia, poor blood counts and poor kidney function. Even in the hospital, doctors had a hard time figuring out what was wrong. While we waited, my kidney function got worse and I received 3 blood transfusions. Finally a diagnosis of bacterial endocarditis and IV antibiotics were started. After several more tests, doctors found that the infection had caused serious damage to my mitral valve and they decided the only way to treat it was to perform surgery to replace the valve Doctors wanted to wait for my kidneys to improve before surgery, but as they continued to fail the decision was made to move me to a new hospital and schedule surgery.

This was after two full weeks in the hospital, countless sets of vitals and blood work. On Friday, March 22, heart valve replacement surgery took place. Following surgery, I was put on dialysis to help my kidneys Recovery from surgery seems to be going well, however, my kidneys have not responded as quickly as I had hoped. The plan is to now do outpatient dialysis. The hope and prayer is that dialysis will be temporary and that my kidneys will respond and begin to function well enough to discontinue dialysis.

I am creating this Go Fund Me because I have not been able to work for over a month plus three weeks in the hospital and heart surgery are bound to create some huge hospital bills.

I don't want to be a burden to my family and they are all doing so much already that I hope this fund will help alleviate some of the worst as we move forward together in this journey.

Thank you for reading this long story. Living through this has been difficult, but it is my goal to recovery fully and return to working full time as soon as possible.