Grandma Sissy

 My mom called us on Kynli's birthday with some bad news. She sounded tired and worried. She said was in Murray at IMC. The biggest hospital in the state. I knew she had been in Salt Lake shopping with Tegan. She told me she had chest pain and was having a hard time breathing. Immediately I didn't think anything big was wrong. But then she described her past 24 hours. She was shopping and had to keep stopping because she couldn't catch her breath. Finally she asked Tegan to take her to the ER. They check into the ER at LDS.  After doing a few tests they took her by ambulance to IMC where she was admitted. They found that her Mitral valve in her heart had failed and that blood was regurgitating back through the valve. I instantly teared up and asked her if she had to have open heart surgery. She didn't know yet, but later learned that was the only choice. The next morning they took her in and the Dr was unable to repair her valve so they replaced it with a pig's valve. I drove down to IMC during the surgery. We sat there all day waiting. Apparently they had complications and the Dr, thankfully, was able to manipulate the heart and work around the severe calcification. After putting in the new valve they were actually having a hard time getting her heart to start pumping again on it's own. When he was finally finished and closed her up he came out and talked to us. He told us that there was a point when he almost ordered a heart transplant! I was so shocked and scared. He said he decided to try one more time and she was 12 seconds away from him making the phone call for the transplant. Luckily her heart decided to pump on it's own. When they finally got her settled in her room it was 8pm. Besides my dad and sisters, all my mom's siblings were there. It was amazing to see us all there in the waiting room visiting and talking about how much we loved her. It was a happy and fun atmosphere once we found out her surgery was successful. They let us all come back into her room in the ICU at once. But she did not look like my mom. It was incredibly terrifying and painful to see her the way she looked. She was really swollen and her face looked distorted and with the hundreds of tubes coming from every direction I couldn't hold in my emotion. Mom always looks put together. I tried to fix her hair a little but she had so many things tied around her head and face. Steve and my dad gave her a blessing. We all eventually left. I drove home but Jake and I brought the girls down to see her a few days later when she was awake and the intubation tube was out. She still looked pretty rough but way better than before. The girls were a little hesitant with her. Mom was really tired and she was trying to talk to us. We decided to go back one more time after a few more days on Sunday (a week from her surgery) and see her again. She was out of the ICU and able to walk around and talk to us. She snuggled the girls and seemed a lot more like grandma sissy. Overall she recovered really quickly. She surprised the staff with her progress every day. Everyone loved her.