In October Kameron was diagnosed with a rare heart condition called Wolf Parkinson White Syndrome. This means that he has an extra electrical current going into his heart. After having a bunch of testing done in November we were told by his cardiologist that his particular condition wasn't life threatening but it was something that should be treated by a heart ablation. In most cases it fixes the problem and stops the extra electrical current from coming into the heart where it shouldn't. Kameron was scheduled for his heart ablation at 7 am on December 9th.
Kameron isn't a dramatic kid. He doesn't get worked up and stressed when it isn't necessary and that has always been a nice aspect of his personality (and Tyler's) in our family of highly dramatic and high stress girls. (His mother included.) Kam was pretty calm about everything...his mother was not. Hopefully I hid it from him but there were many days where I was freaking out and had to be talked off the ledge by Tyler, Kirk, and friends in the medical field. Heart stuff is scary.
Our friend Aaron came over the day before the procedure and helped Tyler give Kam a blessing. So many people were praying for him and that really meant a lot because there is power in prayer. If I have learned nothing else in the last five years it is that. THERE IS POWER IN PRAYER. This was also a time that I really needed my mom. She has been by my side for all of the other scary medical things in our lives. She is a nurse and has been a leader in the health care field for almost 50 years. She has always been my rock and my expert-in-all-things-medical my entire life. So to go through this without her was difficult to say the least. I was pretty nervous the day of the procedure and so was Kam. Thank goodness for Tyler!! The man is a rock.
We went to the hospital that morning with Ailey, Bryn, and Kam's girlfriend Abbey. Reilly's boss absolutely refused to let her off work because they were short staffed. It was hard for Reilly to not be there and to just be getting updates via phone calls and texts.
The first good news of the day was that a friend of ours who used to be in our ward, Eric, was his anesthesiologist. That calmed us all down knowing that Kameron would have Eric in with him. Kam seemed more relaxed too (see first picture) as we waited for him to go back. Then it was time and we headed to a small waiting room. This turned out to be the same waiting room where I sat with my mom while we waited for Tyler to come back from his procedure after his brain hemorrhage.
Kam was in his procedure for almost three hours. It was the longest three hours of my life. Tyler and I tried to stay busy. We designed and ordered our Christmas cards. We bought Christmas presents online. We answered a millions texts. Still time just crawled.
Eric texted us pictures from Kam's procedure and updates. He came out a few times too to talk to us in person about what was happening which was SO HELPFUL.
When Tyler got the first pictures of Kam I had no idea who it was. I just saw the picture and said "Who's that?" Not easy pictures to look at but I am so grateful for the updates that kept us calm...and we really were calm...during the procedure.
We had an odd thing happen while we were waiting. At one point the waiting room cleared out except for one other lady, the girls, Tyler and I. The other lady was sitting in the seat that my mom sat in while we were waiting for Tyler. All of the sudden the woman's phone started playing music SUPER LOUD not just music softly playing in a very quiet waiting room but EXTREMELY LOUD music in a very quiet waiting room. The woman could not turn it off. It just played and played. She looked at us in a panic and said "I don't know what is happening!! I can't turn it off and I can't turn it down!!" Music by The Beatles played for almost five minutes at an extremely high volume. I kept thinking a nurse or someone was going to come in to see what all the racket was! The woman struggled with her phone and we tried to help her. No one could turn off her phone or turn the music down. The woman kept saying, "This has never happened before!!" Finally the music just stopped. All on its own. The poor woman was beside herself apologizing. What she didn't know was that I had goosebumps and chills because my mom was the world's biggest Beatles fan. THE BIGGEST BEATLES FAN! It was her absolute favorite band since she was a teenager. She loved their music so much and blared it throughout our home growing up. The fact that it was coming from the very seat that she sat in the last time we were there was odd too. I am not one who sees signs of my mom everywhere. Occasionally...pink night at the lake was one other time. I don't often *feel* my mom near me. But this was a very odd coincidence if you believe in coincidence. Plus it seemed like something my mom would do. There wouldn't have been anything on Earth to keep her from being there for Kameron and I don't think there was anything in Heaven that was going to stop her either. I felt like she was letting us know that she was there.
Not long after that occurrence my sisters Kelley and Jordin arrived. They were a nice distraction. We were updated that the cardiologist was trying really hard to stimulate Kam's heart to go into the irregular rhythm so he could see where that extra electrical current was going. It took a lot to get his heart to do what they wanted it too. They had to wake him up a bit so he was more conscious (and uncomfortable). They stimulated his heart with adrenaline. Finally they got his heart to do what they wanted it to. Finally after large doses of adrenaline and all the efforts of his cardiologist and a consult with another cardiologist they determined that the extra electrical current was very weak. Nothing life threatening. It also was very close to the major electrical circuit in his heart and doing an ablation there for something that is more of a nuisance wasn't practical and could have done more damage. So no ablation was done after all. That ended up being good news.
Kam went home a few hours after his procedure and had a two week recovery. They went in through the groin which has a longer recovery time. He had to be very careful for the first few days. He could not go up and down the stairs so he moved into Bryn's room and she moved down to his room in our basement. He couldn't work for two weeks or lift anything over 5lbs. It was still quite the process despite not having the actual ablation done. He went in a few days later for an echocardiogram. The results of that came back normal. Thank goodness!! He goes back in to the cardiologist at the end of February. It looks like he may need to be on a daily medication or maybe just on medication when needed for a more severe bout of tachycardia. The good news is that he is doing well and hopefully will be able to submit his mission papers the first of March.
