Living with Congestive Heart Failure

I really have a lot a question attached with my story. maybe you can pass it along and someone can please email me back. My husbands troponin levels were very high when we took him into the ER a year ago he was admitted and the Dr. suggested he have that test where they put the tube in to see if his arteries were blocked but we found out even worse, the Dr. said the muscles around my husbands heart were damaged and his heart was only functioning at 10-12% and that he suggest my husband get a defribillator.

This is a 45 yr. old man I am talking about who has worked all his life, provided for and took good care of his family, being told he needs a defribrillator and he can never work again, my husband was devistated he said ” I don’t want no foreign object in my body, defibillators are for old people”. He totally ignored the doctors and went right back to work and we were right back in the emergency room.

It took a whole year and after having another Echo he decided to get the defribrillator, I was so happy when he decided to have this done. Not long ago he went in, all he was talking about was he can’t wait for his stomach to go down, he can’t wait to run around the block, he was really looking forward to being a chaperone on my daughters trip to springfield in May, he went into the surgery with such high hopes.

For a surgery that I was told only took an hour we were into hour 3 and the Dr. came out and said “my husband was okay and that he attached two leads to the right side of his heart but he could not get the left one attached and he would suggest that my husband see a surgeon to have the other lead attached at a later date”, the Dr. also said “the left lead was the one that would help the CHF more”. This lead is the one that was going to help his stomach go down give him more energy, I knew my husband was going to be upset all over again and think all this was for a waste.

That brings me to today. this is where I stand, it’s been one week since the surgery. at first my husband said no way he would just live his life with only the 2 leads attached, then he would call me at work on monday and say okay I’ll do it and call me on tuesday and say no I don’t want to do it. he has noticed that the 2 leads do help him in many ways and has agreed to have the surgery at the end of the month. Here are my questions, can my husband live a normal life with only the 2 leads attached? We were told they would have to collapse a lung to attach this other lead. my husband is a 30yr. smoker. can his lung survive being collapsed? I know I’m supposed to be sharing my story but If you can’t answer my questions maybe you can pass my letter on to someone who can. I am a very scared wife who has been with this man for 21 years and don’t know what to do or who to talk to.