MAE JULIAN
The Heart Implant Journal
November 26, 1984
Have just awakened. It is 1:40 P.M. Unexpectedly, I ended up staying over for a double shift yesterday. The day of the surgery I worked 18 straight hours in the room. DeVries and the operating team spent about 6 hours in surgery, implanting the artificial heart, before delivering Schroeder to CCU 8.
It was a very dramatic sight to see as he was brought from surgery to our unit. The hallway is wide and long between our unit and surgery. We are separated from the hallway by double doors. If you open the double doors and look down the hall, you can see all the way to the end. It goes past the old CCU and the ICU on the way. This long hallway was lined with security guards. We watched as the procession came towards us. The photographer was standing beside me and the click-click-clicks of his camera were the only sounds I heard. All was silent in this eerie atmosphere as we watched history in the making. There were no fewer than 20 O.R. staff nurses and technicians accompanying the patient, Dr. DeVries, Dr. Lansing, Dr. Jarvik et. al. It was a slow moving sea of green coming towards our sea of green. It reminded me of a wedding.
After entering the double doors of the CCU, there are 8 rooms along the left after you enter. The nurse’s station is the entire length along the right side of this aisle. CCU 8 is at the end. Schroeder was wheeled into CCU 8 with grave seriousness. Almost a reverence and calm surrounded us. It seemed we should have had Beethoven playing. Ode to Joy ran through my mind as I joined the team and we entered the room. I can only describe it as one of the most memorable deeply moving experiences I’ve ever had. All this occurred around 3 PM.
A privacy screen was opened and placed outside #8, to protect us from prying eyes. We were secluded. I was so grateful to have the doctors with us. We were to embark on a journey that no amount of study and experience could have prepared us for. Everyone was in motion.
Schroeder was still on the respirator, the Utah Drive was beside his bed with two large drivelines protruding from his left chest wall, and attached to the machine. The instruments on the machine are now a challenge to me, and I realize how much I need to learn, and quickly. The patient is very pale, unconscious, and tethered to his machine. Blood. We needed more blood, stat. A call was placed to the lab and I made a run for six more units, as only an RN can sign for, and receive the blood. He was bleeding a lot. More than we had expected, or told to expect. He was bleeding profusely from his chest tube into the bag attached to his bed rail. The edge of alarm was apparent. Schroeder continued to bleed when 8 PM was pressing upon us. Six nurses were now in the room. Schroeder was bleeding out and nothing we were doing was improving the situation. We needed six more units of blood. We were in trouble. DeVries made the decision to take him back to surgery, and the whole process from earlier in the day was reversed, as we slowly moved him and all the equipment and personnel back down the long hall back into surgery.
Of course he was unaware of all of this because he never woke up. I heard via phone that TV is reporting that he is conscious, alert, and wanting to get out of bed. This is nonsense. He was never awake and alert and was not expected to be.
After he was taken back to surgery all of us nurses came out and just fell into chairs. We were all leaning on each other. We were exhausted, as we realized five hours or so had gone by and we had hardly taken time to breathe. Most of us had been up since early morning. We drank coffee, talked, shared our concerns, drank pop, laughed, and hugged each other. There was a great camaraderie amongst us all.
Bill DeVries is just a great guy. He is so funny and has an absolutely goofy comical nature. He is serious, shy, funny and warm. I just love him. So much different in personality than Lansing and his team. Lansing takes himself so seriously and has a god-image. DeVries is a Peanut’s character.
It became apparent that I would have to work through the night. Laura asked me to do a double and I readily agreed. When Schroeder was brought back from the O.R. at about 10:30 PM., his bleeding was more controlled, although we continued to infuse him. Funny how the second trip to our unit was not as eventful. We were glad he had survived the repair that DeVries had made to control his bleeding. I had changed, again, into clean sterile scrubs, ready to resume, as we returned him to CCU8.
DeVries was a great source of levity to us all. He got about 2 ½ hours of sleep. Laura and Bryant slept in her office. DeVries went up to the 6th floor and got an empty bed to sleep in. Dr. Yarud, one of the c_ _ _l jockeys, of whom I am not fond, slept in our only CCU empty bed (how rude and assuming). Those remaining in the room during the night were DrVries, (except for the brief sleep mentioned) and seven others besides myself.
By morning, Schroeder was responding to simple commands.
Note from the morning of the implant: Driving into work the day of the surgery, I anticipated that there might be a parking problem, but I had no intentions of parking at the Louisville Zoo and being bussed over to Audubon Hospital. I drove underground, as usual, and parked my car. I got out and walked towards the door. A guard approached me and advised me that the underground parking was for press only, now. I told him that I was taking care of the Artificial Heart patient and had been approved for parking underground. He looked a bit surprised if not suspicious, but I continued to the door, and entered the hospital. My brother, Bob, has a saying….it is always better to apologize later than to ask permission first. It worked well, and as I proceeded to the elevator, I said, “Thanks Bob.” Thereafter I continued to park in my usual place and was not questioned again. Once noting my presence, they did not bother me again.
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