Plan B (aka, the first post Chris wrote about my HHT crisis)

This blog started as a journal from my Caring Bridge site during a horrific HHT crisis.  The first few posts will be directly from the Caring Bridge journal. I've selected just a few of the most relevant journal entries to give you perspective on the crisis and why I'm blogging now. 

Caring Bridge Journal Entry by Chris O'Meara — Feb 15, 2018

Nicole has a bleeding condition that causes her to bleed in her lungs. She had a long (16 year) hiatus from symptoms but her lungs recently started bleeding and she needs surgery to make it stop....Unfortunately, Plan A did not work out.

When Nicole left the hospital on the 8th she was planning on coming back for an interventional procedure on the 15th. She didn't make it that long.

On Tuesday morning the 13th she had another bleed and we rushed her to the emergency department. The doctors there stabilized her and sent her to another hospital for an emergency Interventional Radiology procedure. This was the procedure scheduled for the 15th. We call it Plan A. Plan A involved rerouting blood flow in part of Nicole's right lung around the damaged part of the lung. The doctors tried for 3 hours and could not get access to the vessels in her lungs that they needed to block.The failure of Plan A was a huge disappointment for everyone, especially Nicole.

Over the past two days Nicole has recovered from her procedure and come to accept the new plan, which is surgery. We call this Plan B. Plan B involves removing the damaged part of her right lung. The surgeon expressed optimism about a successful surgery but that she should expect a difficult recovery due to the location on the incision.

Please pray that Nicole experiences God's peace as she approaches this scary and invasive operation.

One request: as we explain this to our Littles, we use the analogy of "Mommy's leaky faucet." We explained to them that the doctors tried to fix the leak but the pipes were too small and a different doctor gets a turn now. If you happen to interact with our kids we'd appreciate sticking with the analogy rather than talking about the medical details.