“Exploding Heart”: Husband Bob Lived Through It; Senator Lindsey Did Not

What killed Lindsey Graham struck my husband Bob Dick nine-and-a-half years ago. For about an hour and a half back then, I was pretty sure Bob was gone.

The Night of the Explosion

The ailment– aortic dissection at the ascending arch–is when the inner layer of the aorta breaks and blood starts ballooning the outer layer at the place where the force is greatest. This quickly kills about three-quarters of those afflicted and can lead to death years later.

Bob has survived because he got help fast and because he had a very good surgeon and because luck was with us. We had been eating dinner at La Farm Bakery Cafe. He said he needed to go home because his jaw was hurting (Moral of this story: if you have jaw pain, get help fast.) I arrived home about 15 minutes after him. When I walked in, he was standing in the kitchen, said, “Take me to an urgent care.”

“This Is A Big Deal”

Being completely unaware of the implications of this symptom, I thought this was a little extreme, but fortunately did not say so. We set out looking for a clinic that was open…and arrived at the WakeMed ER in Apex. As he went through various tests, his pain vanished. He wanted to go home, but staff persuaded him to take one more test. Then the doctor came in and drew him a picture of the artery bulging next to his heart. He was startled to hear that he’d soon be traveling by ambulance or helicopter. “This is a big deal,” the doctor said.

It took an hour for this ER doc to arrange for bed and surgeon. I was on edge. It now seemed clear to me that he could die any minute. I asked a nurse if I was right about that. All he said was, “It’s a good sign that he’s not in pain.” Obviously a dodge. Bob could have died any minute.

The doc on the phone did a great job. By the time I got to Bob’s room in Duke Hospital that night, a surgeon who specialized in aortas, Dr. Ryan Plichta, was standing beside Bob’s  bed, with a second surgeon in the room. Dr. Plichta said death was one of the risks of the surgery.

The Forever-Vivid Memory

The most tender-to-the-touch memory of my life was seeing Bob as he was rolled to surgery twisting his head back to meet my eyes one more time. But it was too late. The gurney was moving too fast.

Around three the next afternoon, Dr. Plichta came to the waiting room to report. He looked exhausted and unhappy. Bob’s alive, he said, and stable, but he didn’t know if he was going to wake up. Ever. His aorta had fallen apart during the surgery, he’d had to slow blood to other systems while he did the massive repair.  If Bob did wake up, he might be badly damaged.

 

I was able to see him an hour and a half later. In that interim, I thought I’d lost him. When I went to his room in the ICU, Bob woke up within a few minutes. A nurse reported that he had smiled once when he was first brought in.

He did wake up fully and fairly quickly with no sign of damage. In fact, he woke me up the next morning, when I was finally getting a little sleep.  “It’s 9:30,” he said as if I were delinquent in sleeping so late. “Hand me my computer.” Then, operating on all eight cylinders, he started cancelling the day’s appointments with his psychotherapy patients.

I was astounded. He was altogether fine. None of his organs or systems were damaged.

The Oldest Patient?

And now it has been almost a decade. His cardiologist marvels, has told us more than once that Bob is his oldest patient. “Nine years!” he says. And that’s wonderful, but I would prefer to think that nine years and more is what any survivor can expect, that the explosion, once repaired, poses no further risk.

Bob has lots of ailments now, needs 24/7 care, which is for me challenging, sometimes scary, often daunting and tiring, Most important though, I’m happy I get the chance to do it. He’s still fully Bob and his great heart is doing just fine. Reading the news this week is a sharp reminder of how differently that night might have turned out.

So if your jaw hurts, get help fast.

With love,

Peggy

 

 

 

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Tags: 24/7 care, aorta breaks, aortic dissection at the ascending arch, artery bulging, Bob Dick, Duke Hospital, exploding heart, going to wake up, jaw pain, La Farm Bakery, Lindsey Graham, Ryan Plichta, urgent care, WakeMed ER in Apex