marvin's in the hospital

Hey, all! I haven't been around for a few days because my husband (Marvin) is in the hospital. Back in December, he had an infection in an old graft site (hadn't used it in two years). The infection was MRSA and before they could get the graft out, the infection spread to his heart and damaged a valve. He had to have a pacemaker put in in December. The pacer hasn't worked right, and he had to have it "re-set" three times. Last Thursday, it quit all together. I was at work, and Marvin called me -- terrified. My neighbor got to our house in two minutes. Rescue squad next. To our local hospital -- then on to Duke (Durham, NC).

The pacer isn't working because the leads (epi-cardial -- screwed into the side of the heart) aren't making a good connection with Marvin's heart. The doctors tell us they usually put this type of pacemaker (device implanted in abdomen, leads run to the outside of the heart instead of down into the heart) in dialysis patients. The risk of infection with leads (wires) run into the heart is so much greater with hemodialysis patients because we're accessing the vascular system and, hence, the bloodstream with every dialysis treatment. Anyway, Marvin's heart has scar tissue (explained to us as a "fiber-like thickness"). The docs said this was typical in long-term dialysis patients -- and other organs are affected the same way. With the scar tissue around his heart, the leads to the pacemaker aren't firing like they should.

The surgeons tried to go into the pacer and revise it on Friday. No luck. Now, he will have surgery on Wednesday to implant a whole new pacemaker. This one will be in the abdomen again but one of Marvin's doctors has researched the whole thing over the week-end and they will now use different leads (wires that run from the pacer to the heart). The "new" leads will be coated in steroids, thus lessening the chance that the scar tissue will interrupt their conductivity. They're going into the middle of his chest to be closer to the heart (so they can look for a "good" spot on the heart to attach the leads). If this doesn't work, he'll have to have a "traditional" pacemaker (one in the chest with leads run down into the heart), but that's our last resort.

Marvin's spirits are good -- as usual. He says this is just another bump in the road. Please say a prayer for him.

I haven't had a chance to get caught up on the boards. How's Goofynina? How about willieandwinnie's Len? Even though things have been super crazy for us over the past five days, I've been unable to get my mind off Goofynina and w&w and Len.