TOS

I hope everyone is having a great Tuesday!

I just wanted to give a quick update on what’s going on with Zacky.

Friday January 30, 2015 Zack went in for his appointment with a vein specialist. After his appointment they let him know that he has TOS also known as thoracic outlet syndrome. TOS is a rare condition that involves pain in the neck and shoulder, numbness and tingling of the fingers, and a weak grip. The thoracic outlet is the area between the rib cage and collar bone. The blood clot is located in the subclavian vein, located between the first rib and collar bone. They believe Zack's rib and collar bone are too close together so when he lifts his arm above his head it cuts off the circulation and creates a clot. They told him that they needed to remove the clot first and then go in later to remove his first rib.

They told him that they'd like to start the process of getting rid of the blood clot the next day.

Zack went in for surgery on Saturday January 31, 2015. The surgery he went in for was to receive TPA also known as Tissue plasminogen activator. "TPA is a protein involved in the breakdown of blood clots. It is a serine protease found on endothelial cells, the cells that line the blood vessels."

They inserted this medicine through a catheter in his arm for a little over 24 hours. After the surgery he was placed in the ICU due to how "toxic" this medicine is. TPA thins the blood so if he had any other issues he would essentially bleed out.

Not having much time to process everything was a bit scary. We didn’t know much about what he had or what was about to happen. Everything kind of happened so fast it was hard to get all my emotions together.

Zack has never had any surgery before so when we arrived at the hospital you could tell he was really nervous. This made me even MORE nervous because he is not the nervous type. He is very calm about situations so when he started rambling about the water fountain outside and asking if the water was hot I knew he was trying to get his mind off of everything. It pretty much broke my heart.

We got to the hospital and settled in to the room where Zack was prepped for surgery. We took a couple pics and as you can tell he wasn’t too thrilled.

They wheeled him down to the surgery room and we sat in the hall and waited for them to take him into the operating room.

After he was wheeled away I went a got some lunch and cried on the inside for what felt like hours, until we were finally able to go into the ICU and sit with him. He was pretty happy with all the drugs he was on (even though it doesn't look like it.) Ha.

All he wanted was to eat.

I stayed in the room with him the entire time unless I needed to use the restroom or eat some food. I hated seeing him in pain. They had to come in and draw blood every 6 hours and he did not like that at all. They also came in every 2 hours to check his pulse and make sure everything was okay.

At around 3:00 am I went home, showered and came back. I slept I think a total of 3 hours that night. The ICU does not have beds for anyone else but the patient so let’s just say I was trying to sleep on a metal chair that did not move in any way! So sleeping wasn't much of an option for me.

The next afternoon Zack went back in to surgery to make sure the blood clot had dissolved and to get the catheter removed. He came back from that surgery VERY drugged and sleepy. He slept for most of the day.

Later that night the doctor came in and said we would be able to go home if Zack was able to walk around for a minute. So of course being my cute husband he got right up, sick as can be and walked around.

As soon as we got back to the room he felt so nauseous and had the worst headache so he slept for another hour until we finally decided the best thing to do would be go home and sleep it off.

Let me just say when we got home, it was so heartbreaking to see my cute hubby crying because of the pain. I got teary eyed seeing him in so much pain and not be able to do anything to take it away.

We've been going through the motions over in our house. It’s been a very stressful time for me and I can’t thank you all enough for the kind words and prayers.

The next doctor’s appointment is on February 20th. That appointment will most likely schedule him for his next surgery for TOS where they remove his first rib.

I will keep you updated and let you know what the doctor says.

Keep us in your prayers please.

Thank you.

Love Always,

The Crazy Collards