Hank G. Eyring

Me with my two youngest

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I was born in August of 1966 and raised a poor Caucasian male.  I have a beautiful wife of 11 years and 4 perfect children.  I live in Mesa, Arizona where the skies are blue and the sun is hot.  

I grew up without any significant medical events and have no history of heart problems anywhere in my family. That is until something that started in February or March of 1999.  Up to that time, I was fairly active.  I played full court basketball around once a week and rode my bike to work and did all this without any significant pain.

The turning point happened one night while at school for my MCSE  courses.  I started getting chills and went to the restroom.  When I got in there, I started shaking uncontrollably.  These were not your average shakes.  I was not even able to open the door to get out of the restroom.  I tried running my hands under hot water for 15 minutes so that I could stop them from shaking to no avail. My arms and upper body were shaking so bad that I really thought it was the end.  Finally, after 20 minutes of trying, I got the door open and headed back to the room where my father was (he was taking the same class).  On the way there, I passed a phone and tried to pick up the receiver to dial 911 but could not even do that!  I made it back to the room, got my dad, and he threw me in the car and we headed out.  The shakes soon went away and I just felt cold.  His wife is a nurse, so he took me to his home where my family was living at the time.  My stepmother took my temperature and it was 105 degrees!!  She then made me strip and get into a bathtub of ice water.  My temp came down rapidly and she most likely saved my life. 

I went to see my doctor the next day and they started the evil cycle of diagnosis, trying to figure it all out.

Then it all started.  I got an "alien" in me.  The reason I called it an alien is because this was a traveling pain that defied all reason.  One day I would have excruciating pain in my right ankle that felt exactly like a sprained ankle and I could barely walk.  The next day my ankle would feel just fine but I would have the pain in my left knee.  These pains were not just simple aches one gets on a normal basis.  I remember very clearly being up at night crying like a baby with a pain in my thigh that felt like a butcher knife had been thrust through it and was being twisted around slowly.

Of course I went to see my doctor over and over while they tried every med in the book.  Muscle relaxers, pain meds, heat, cold, anti-depressants, arthritis doctors and everything else you can imagine.  Finally, they did another series of blood tests.  These tests finally showed that I had an infection in my blood of unknown origin.

My doctor called me at home (which is a rare thing these days) and asked me to come down to the office .  I did and when I got there he listened to my chest very carefully.  He then told me he thought he heard a murmur and waned me to get an echocardiogram.  At this point, I was thinking that he was totally out of his mind to even imply that there was anything wrong with my heart.  There was absolutely no history of heart problems in my family and I had always been healthy.  Other than the dark circles under my eyes (which I have had since birth), you would look at me and think "wow, that guy is skinny, but still looks healthy".

Anyway, I decided to humor him and went home and informed the wife that I needed to go to the hospital to have an echocardiogram.  I went down there and admitted myself. 

DIAGNOSIS:

I was told that I had gotten an infection in my blood and that my aortic valve had become infected and had not only grown "vegetations" on it, but that the valve had been damaged and was leaking badly. This was causing the left side of my heart to become enlarged beyond normal. I was told that if I did not have the valve replaced very soon, that my heart would be irreverseably damaged. Considering the state that I was in at the time, I actually welcomed the diagnosis in a way. Any fate was more appealing than the pain that I faced every day and night. I instantly resigned myself to the reality that I was going to have open heart surgery.

PREPARATION:

First, the infection had to be cleared up in order for me to be a candidate for surgery. While still in the hospital, I had a PICC line inserted into my artery in my arm which snaked all the way up to my shoulder and then down the artery into the top of my heart. Through this line, I was given twice daily injections of antibiotics for a duration of six weeks until my blood was clear of any infection. This was done at first by a home care nurse, and then by myself as I had years of medical experience and could handle it without any difficulty.

During this time, my condition worsened. My lower extremities bacame quite puffy and swolen and my energy level decreased rapidly. The pains that I had been experiencing gradually started to subside as the infection cleared up.

DECISIONS:

I also visited with my surgeon during this time and he decided that due to my age at the time (34 years old), I would be best suited having a mechanical valve installed. He told me that the St. Jude Mechanical valve was his valve of choice. So, the decision was made. While waiting for my surgery date to arrive, I did extensive research on coumadin and it's adverse effects. Finding that the drug had been in use for several decades without any adverse effects (except bleeding of course), I was satisfied that I had made the right choice to go with the mechanical valve.

SURGERY:

The day of surgery finally came and the PICC line had already been removed. I was given a bottle of body disinfectant to shower with the morning of surgery. After doing that, I headed to the hospital with my dear sweet wife and checked myself in. I had tests done which included an ECG, an ABG and the standard blood draws. Then in the pre-op area, an IV was started and I was ready to rock. After getting some happy juice injected into the IV, I said "later" to Michelle and was wheeled into the operating room. There I was draped with the usually surgical garb, and then I breathed into a mask that made me go night night.

RECOVERY:

Next thing I knew, I woke up in ICU facing my worst nightmare. I woke up while still intubated and on a ventilator. WHAT A NIGHTMARE!! It was uncontrollable gagging and futile efforts to communicate with my wife and the nurses to GET THAT DAMN TUBE OUT OF MY THROAT!!!!!!!! I can never describe what a horrible experience that was. My only suggestion is for everyone to make their doctors promise that they will be extubated (the endotracheal tube removed) before they wake up. I did, and it didn't help, but you have got to try. I would rather go through the recovery process a thousand times over than have to be on that ventilator for another minute.

The first day, actually only hours after I woke up, they had me sitting up on the side of the bed. Painful indeed. Then the next step was to stand up. Then it was over to the chair for a short stay. while in the chair, I felt a warm sensation down my right side and called the nurse. She came in and used a towel to wipe some blood that was on my side and then left. A while later, I had still felt it so I called the nurse again. When they came in, I had developed a large puddle of blood on the floor from bleeding around the side of one of my chest tubes. This alarmed them to the point that they rushed me back into the operating room to stop the bleeding and also insert a third chest tube to drain out more blood that had collected in my chest.

to be cont...

From Left to Right
My Brother Darren, Myself,
My Brother Tim, My Father,
Nephew Matthew, Step Mother Marilee