Tony recently spent 2 weeks in the ICU after going into "cardiogenic shock". His heart wasn't pumping enough blood to keep his body going. He was placed on ECMO (an artificial heart and lung machine the doctors described as "the strongest intervention in all of medicine").
For the first few days, we didn't know what the future looked like. Now, we are deeply relieved to say that he has responded well to all treatments, Tony is now at home, and his heart is pumping on its own. Moving forward, Tony has ongoing medications, possible future procedures, and a ton of medical bills. We're raising money to help cover at least some of these costs.
If you're interested, here's some backstory:
Some of you know that Tony has been feeling sick on and off for the past few months. Originally diagnosed as pneumonia, he got better, but then started feeling worse again. Eventually Tony ended up in the ER earlier this month with an alarmingly fast heart rate (170 beats per minute!). His heart rate went above 200 beats per minute later that day.
After some failed attempts to use electroshock to bring him down to a normal rhythm, they put him on an artificial heart and lungs called ECMO (Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation), to fully replace the function of his heart. The doctors described this to us as the "strongest intervention in all of medicine". We didn't know what the future looked like.
After about 36 hours of rest, his heart started slowly recovering. After 7 days, his heart was able to pump with a smaller amount of support from an "Impella pump", which helped pump his left ventricle only. About 5 more days after that, the Impella pump was removed as well, and his heart is currently pumping under its own power.
Tony has just come home from the hospital and is recovering, but the journey isn't over quite yet. He will be on medications for a while, and possibly undergo other procedures later on to help strengthen his heart function.
In the meantime, we already have a ton of medical costs and some other more tangential costs (hotel stays near the hospital, etc.). We're hoping to raise some money to help us cover this sudden expense - any amount is truly appreciated.