Hello everyone. I come here in search of support and looking to learn from others. This seems to be one of the few places that offers as a resource for very young widows and widowers. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot for 30 year old males who have just lost their spouse.
My name is Frank as my screename says. I lost my wife of 6 years (together for 8 ) on October 22nd following 37 days on life support at Stanford Medical Center. She went in for open heart surgery, her third, to replace her aortic valve. She was born with Aortic Stenosis. At age 10 she had the valve repaired. At age 22 she had it replaced. We had been together just 2 years at that point. Now she needed it replaced again. This was supposed to be the last surgery, as we elected to go with a mechanical valve. The previous surgery we elected a biological valve, because it gave us a chance to have children due to her not having to be on Coumadin.
We were able to conceive just once, only to have her miscarry a month after finding out we were pregnant. A year and half after this miscarriage, she has now left me. I've lost a baby and now the love of my life.
Everything with this third surgery went south starting the day of the operation. The main culprit that caused everything to spiral out of control was scar tissue build up from the previous surgeries. The doctors were anticipating encountering scar tissue, but not to the magnitude they ultimately encountered once they went in. What supposed to be a 6.5 hour surgery went almost 10, because of the amount of scar tissue they encountered. Her coronary arteries were fused to her heart, specifically right over her valve. They have to free them loose. Her surgeon who is the director of Stanford cardiac surgery had to call in assistance, that's how difficult the surgery became for him.
The cutting on and around the coronary arteries caused them to have to do graphs. One of the graphs caused a blockage and her right ventricle failed. That was complication number 2. So they needed to do a bypass.
After the bypass, she was out of surgery with a new valve. But due to her right ventricle suffering cardiogenic shock, she remained on a machine called an ECMO to allow her heart to rest. The ECMO essentially acted as her heart. Her heart still was beating, but it wasn't doing the work, allowing it rest.
The plan was to try and come off the ECMO in about a week. When they tried, her heart would not tolerate it and start to fail. They said it needed more time. This back and forth occurred for two more weeks. Her heart just never recovered enough to come off ECMO. All during this time, she was heavily sedated, just shy of a coma. I know she could hear me and he the nurses. She followed commands like hand squeezing, and occasionally would mouth through the ventilator "Yes" "no" and "I love you" when I would tell her I loved her.
I read to her books during this time. I had a harpist come and play songs for her. I decorated her room for Halloween.
At the third week mark, we encountered complication number 3. Infection. Because she was laying down for weeks and fluid had accumulated in her lungs, she got a pneumatic bacterial infection. All plans to come of ECMO went on hold. They told us 7-10 days to get rid of the infection and then they would try to come off ECMO.
7 days went by, the infection subsided enough they could proceed with trying to ween her off ECMO. They got two days into this process when complication number 4 occured. And this was the one that ultimately took her life. She contracted a fungal infection in the blood, called Candida. This particular species was very aggressive, and known to be resistant to anti fungals. They wasted no time and put her on the most powerful anti fungal Stanford has. It's so powerful they can only give it for three days at a time, and you have to go on dialysis because of the side effects to the kidneys.
This is how the last week of her life began. She was stable for most of the week and the antifungal seemed to be working. Then seemingly overnight from Friday the 21st to the 22nd the fungus exploded 8nside her. I left her in the ICU for the night and she was a healthy looking shade of pink. I returned text morning when the hospital called me to tell me to get down there ASAP to a wife that looked pale and turning yellow. Bruises were appearing all over her legs and arms. Her fingers curled and stiff and l they felt like twigs, not warm and soft.
She dying in front of me and the staff told me she had 12 hours left tops. Only the ECMO was keeping blood pressure and her ventilator was all that was keeping her lungs going. Without them, the condition she was in would result in death within minutes of being taken off.
Thus at 11:30 am on October 22nd, I made the decision to remove her suffering and directed the staff to turn off the ECMO. They staff made the preparationa. They upped her sedation and pain medication to the maximum possible. The chaplain was called. We gathered around and said a blessing. At 12:17 I layed over my wife's chest with tears streaming down my face and gave a nod to the nurse, signaling to turn off the ecmo.
At 12:20, her ventiltor breathed the last breath and her monitors were flat. She was gone. 12:20pm, October 22nd 2016. She was 28 years young. Her last day awake l, the day before surgery, was her 28th birthday. I took her to San Francisco zoo. I gave her her favorite dinner, grilled lobster. It would be the last time we would have a date out together. I told her everything would be alright. I told her, as I kissed her for the last time on the morning of her surgery, that I'd see her when she woke up. Neither of those things happened. I lied to her and now she is gone.
So here I am. A man. 30 years old. And a widower. I feel utterly alone. I have a great family support structure trying to help me through this, and some friends. But most if not all are much older. I've found very little in the way of widower support and resources for people as young as me. I fear the future when most of my friends and demographic will be dating, getting married, and having kids while I will be the one that just buried his wife. If I should feel like dating again when I'm ready, IF I'may ever ready, how will me being a widower play with ladies of my millenial generation?
I feel just so alone with this dynamic. I love and miss my wife terribly. I want this nightmare to end and just wake up. It doesn't feel real.
Thank you everyone for taking the time to read my story.
- Frank.
