Just Need a Place to "Voice" my Fears. *Update*
After reading Medusa's post about her son's rush to the ER it got me to thinking about my younger (Can't call him little anymore) cousin. Before I describe the latest drama that scared the crap out of me, let me give you a little background.
Richie (my cousin) was born with a defect in his heart which had to be corrected surgically when he was about 5 days old. They had to go in a replace a valve in his heart with a mechanical one. Of course this valve had to be replaced as he grew so he's had multiple open heart surgeries throughout his 17 + (he'll be 18 next month) years. In the summer of '02 (I think), a couple weeks after going down to Memphis, TN (he was born there and they later moved back to New Madrid County) to see his heart doctor, he got really sick. My aunt called and said he was running a temp of 103 degrees and she couldn't get it to come down. So we took him to the nearest (though pretty crappy - but I'll get to that in a minute) hospital. Sikeston's (the above mentioned crappy) Hospital did not know what was wrong so they decided to send him back to Memphis (don't remember which one it was) Hospital. Memphis concluded that it was a Staph infection in his blood stream but they could not get rid of the infection. They sent him to Little Rock, AR (again I don't remember which hospital) where they determined that the infection was breeding on the artificial valve and had moved into the surrounding wall of the heart. Problem was unlike Memphis which is only a couple hours away, Little Rock was a 5 hour drive so there would be no support from the family on a daily basis for my aunt. After talking it over we did what we always do and pulled together for her. I offered my car so she wouldn't be stranded at the hospital or hotel room and my cell phone. Grandma offer her credit cards for the hotel room and Mom went down and spent week at a time for support. Richie came out of that fine. They had to go in and remove the artificial valve and the wall that separates the two chambers on the left side of his heart that the valve was attached to. Everything was fine after that. He never had anymore problems, the docs said that he could be a normal teenager after a while. He was on blood thinners all his life because of the valve so he was suppose to avoid anything that might cause him to get injured. No bike, skateboard, ect. so as you can guess once the infection was gone he was one happy boy.
A couple week ago, Mom got a call from my aunt saying that Richie was having chest pains and she couldn't get a hold of 911 on the cell phones. (They don't have a house phone) Mom rushed over and picked them up and was rushing to the Sikeston hospital because they didn't think he could make it the extra 25 miles to Cape Giradeau. Mary (Richie's mom) called our other aunt Erma, who works as a nurse at the hospital, to tell her that they were bringing Richie in. Erma told her to have Mom stop the car because she was sending the ambulance to pick him up. Once they get to the hospital, Richie says that the pain in his chest was moving up his neck and down his left arm and hand. He actually stopped breathing and past out once sitting in the waiting room. The hospital put an oxygen mask on him and gave him a shot of nitroglycerin and asprin. They kept him overnight for observation then released him the next day saying he just had a bad case of bronchitis. :eek: Bronchitis? Really? I may not have any medical training but it sounds like he the symptoms and treatment of a HEART ATTACK!!!! I develop bronchitis at least once a year (except for the three years I was away from the smokers down here) and I have never had frickin' chest pains and passed out. Even Erma said the boy had a heart attack! But Mary, who doesn't believe the docs anymore than the rest of us, refuses to take him for a second opinion. His Docs in Little Rock wouldn't see him earlier (he had an appointment yesterday) unless the doctor who attended to him recommends that he be seen. I stopped by last Sat. to drop something off with Grandma and Richie was outside working on the family car. As I was sitting outside in Grandma's car waiting on Mary and G-ma to finish talking beside the car. I noticed Richie squatting beside Mary's car. I called him over, he was sweating even though it was only 50 F and he couldn't catch his breath. I told him to go take a break and he said he just came out from a break 5 minutes ago. Grandma, of course, jumped all over him and told him to go in the house and not come back out until he was better. But it scared the crap out of me.
We've always known in the back of our minds that Richie was sick. I mean it was a pretty hard fact to ignore with him going in every so often to have someone dig around in his chest. But we've never really thought of him as having anything wrong. He has always acted just like any other kid his age. Now his heart problem is obvious (at least to me) for the first time. He hasn't been to school but once and he said he couldn't even walk around the halls from class to class without getting winded. I'm scared that something is seriously wrong. They won't have any of the results from the tests they ran yesterday for weeks and I'm scared that he doesn't have that long. I can't say any of this to my family though because I'm suppose to be the strong reassuring one. "Everything's going to be fine." "It'll all work itself out in the end." Ect. But I don't know. I can't lose Richie. He's like my little brother. I'll just fall apart.
Well thanks for letting me whine for a little bit. I just had to put it out there to someone that I'm scared and confused.
