Home Is Where The Heart Is

Leaving through the hospital doors with my arm around Lynnette was breath taking. Was I anxious to get home? I still don’t know. Shock is the word I might use. I could not believe I was going home.

Picture: (Top- Becki was one of the many nurses who cared for me. I loved each nurse who dealt with the old man in the kid's hospital.)

Primary Children’s Medical Center had become my home and family. Leaving them behind was an interesting emotion. Of course, patients continue to cycle through their care.

Whatever joyous celebration we experienced in my recovery, the nurses caring for me signed off their responsibility and went back to work caring for the many sick children still fighting for their future. And yet, there is not much public recognition for these quiet and faithful employees who bless so many lives.

After picking sweet Eden up from a cousin’s home we drove up our street noticing the many pink and red heart shaped balloons my sister Carol had placed all over our front yard on trees and bushes. I was proud to know our neighbors knew this was a great day in our lives.

Picture: (Middle- Barb Wright began caring for me in 1975. She has helped thousands of cardiac kids in the EKG lab at Primary Children's Medical Center)

Our neighbors had mowed the lawn and trimmed everything. They even picked the tomatoes they had planted in a garden they helped create many months ago. I had told Lynnette I was looking forward to eating those tomatoes not knowing if that would really happen.

I expected to be home shortly before Thanksgiving or Christmas. My anatomy and symptoms were beyond anyone’s true comprehension. And we planned for the worse while trusting in God and his ability to orchestrate the events of our lives.

We have a quiet home on a peaceful street. Walking through our front door and observing the blessings poured out upon us from all our hard work over the years was humbling. Peace permeates the small rooms and strength fills the walls. I attribute this to Lynnette and her divine nature. She's created something beautiful.

This has been our refuge. We've had many challenges and decisions to make therein which would effect our future. There will be roads to take, and mountains to climb in our future. Amidst our future joy, celebration, and happiness, we will face heart-ache, pain, and grief. However, I find great comfort in knowing the God of Heaven is a loving and kind Father who will help guide us as we seek Him out. I'm reminded of these words from Harold B. Lee, “The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own home.” Our souls will stretch and our wisdom will increase from our experiences and we will be that much more prepared to strengthen others who are going through hard times.

And might I add, if you are not a religious person or doubtful of such strong statements I make about God I encourage you to cling to goodness and those who want to be good. Serve them and befriend them. They will lift you. They will buoy you up when life gets dark and challenging. It is through their goodness that you will feel the literal arms of God around you.

Picture: (Bottom Right- Back home with the family)

Spending a quiet evening at home with my daughter and Lynnette was something special and nostalgic. I think Eden went through 4-5 outfits until we were able to get her off to a ballet/tap dance class in her cute pink tutu. Of course, she kept touching my chest to feel my heart. And from time to time with a vulnerable sweet smile she’d ask, “Dad, hold my hand?”

And now more than ever I know home is where the heart is. And with tears of gratitude in my heart I know I’m home to stay.

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As much as I enjoy maintaining livingforeden.com there will be one more entry and a short video of our journey. Then this blog will be closed until after the holidays. I’ll be spending time with family, compiling my message into a book, and preparing for a long journey ahead advocating the growing needs and education of those living with congenital heart disease, as well as organ donation.

Please visit me at my music site and sign up for the newsletter or go through the various options of finding me on twitter, facebook, youtube, and other places. I would love to keep in touch.

In The News

Video Courtesy of KSL.com

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Paul Cardall recovery a 'miracle'
Heart recipient comes home far earlier than doctors had expected

By Carrie A. Moore
Deseret News
Published: September 10, 2009
Photo by Jeffery R. Allred, Courtesy of The Deseret News

As pink and red heart-shaped balloons bob in the breeze outside their home, Paul and Lynnette Cardall are examining prescription bottles inside.

There's a new heart beating in Paul's chest. Lynnette's heart, for the first time in more than a year, is finally beginning to rest easy.

The Utah musician and his wife came home from the hospital on Wednesday, weeks before anyone had believed would be possible after Paul's heart transplant two weeks ago at Primary Children's Medical Center.

Doctors had told them it would be five to six weeks before he would be strong enough to unplug all the oxygen and IV lines so he could walk away a free man, but as he has done so many times before, Cardall surprised them all.

Before his recent surgery, the 36-year-old husband and father was the oldest Utah patient with his specific type of congenital heart disease to have survived to his age without a transplant. To have him home so soon, and without experiencing any major complications, "is a dream come true. It's just a miracle," Lynnette Cardall said.

Before leaving the hospital, the couple was shown Cardall's old heart, "a football-sized" organ he said he had been lucky to live so long with, considering it was only about half-functional. He said that as he held a portion of it in his hands, turning it over and over and examining the stitches from past surgeries, that was the moment when he "truly understood that somebody else is clearly in charge of our lives."

Future medical students at the University of Utah will hold his old heart in their hands also as a learning tool to help understand congenital heart disease, even as Cardall continues on a series of anti-rejection drugs to keep his body from rejecting the new organ.

READ THE ARTICLE

Patrick Needs Our Help!

During the 7 weeks I spent at PCMC I became familiar with a lot of different children and their unique experiences. One such family is the Hoopes. Brian works with my father. When my brother died, this young couple stood in line for 2 hours holding Patrick in their arms to pay their respects. They are an amazing couple and deserve our attention as they place their faith in the will of the Lord and hope to save Patrick's life.



Produce for Patrick: Neighbors help raise funds for boy's transplant
By Katie Drake - 09/23/2009

[Photo: Ten-month-old Patrick Hoopes at Primary Children's Medical Center with his parents. (Trent Nelson / The Salt Lake Tribune)]

Taylorsville » It started with pear trees.

Tifanie Pulley had noticed lots of them in her Taylorsville neighborhood, all producing unused fruit.

Pulley decided to harvest the surplus to raise money for a worthy cause -- an intestinal transplant for Patrick Hoopes.

Patrick, who turns 1 on Halloween, was born with only a tiny portion of his small intestine and about one-third of his colon. He can't absorb nutrients from food and must be constantly fed through an IV. Ingesting food that way slowly destroys Hoopes' liver.

His medical problems didn't deter Brian and Emily Hoopes from adopting Patrick when he was 8 days old. They instantly fell in love with his vibrant dark eyes and flirtatious personality, and so did their neighborhood.

To help raise the estimated $500,000 needed to obtain Patrick's transplant, neighbors are working to raise funds any way they can, like Pulley and the pears.

Continue the Article

Fitted For A Better World

Today, I walked for 30 minutes; nearly tube free with the exception of my chest tubes draining fluid, and without oxygen, from my room at Primary Children’s Medical Center over the long hallway to the University of Utah Medical Center. And although I have to gown up and wear a mask and gloves to protect myself from infection I have never felt so alive!

(Right Photo - Taking my first walk to a window where I can see Mount Olympus which I plan to climb June 9, 2010 to overlook the beautiful Salt Lake Valley.)

I should be home soon. But, I’ll be back every other day for the usual poking and prodding, biopsies, and rehab typical of a post-transplant life.

Eventually, I’ll have a stabilized drug regimen and be on my way to a most normal life with a new transplanted organ.

And what to do now?

(Photo Left - Chief of Cardiothoracic Surgery, Primary Children’s Medical Center Aditya K. “AK” Kaza, M.D. showing my family my old 5lb heart.)

Over the next couple of weeks I plan to wrap up this blog for a season in order to focus all my time and attention on my wife and little girl. I think I’ll have Eden take me shopping for a bicycle. I’m sure she’ll have a good idea. Maybe she’ll buy me some tap shoes since she is also taking a dance class.

This blog, Living for Eden, will remain online and available as a resource for the folks googling medical information and looking for personal help. Those of you interested in continuing to follow my situation I suggest visiting my music career website and signing up on my mailing list. I will let people know how I am doing until I choose to blog further. Click Here to sign up.

(Photo Right - My kind and wonderful P.I.C.U. nurse removing IVs from my jugular vein.)

The road has been long and difficult. We have experienced the roller coaster of emotions. There have been deep discussions in the darkest hours of evenings concerning the “what if?” How would my family live without a father and husband. Such questions are sobering. Many tears have flowed.

We’ve spent countless hours on our knees seeking help. And the help came through the arms of those who love people and love God. I have learned a great deal about the character of my community. There is more virtue and good in the world than evil. People quietly go about doing good and I’m moved to follow in their footsteps.

(Photo Right - PCMC Director, Adult Congenital Cardiac Program Angela T. Yetman interacting with my family in the surgical waiting room.)

I’ve shared insights and probably preached principles I hope have helped your life. I know, not alone, but by so many others, that you cannot learn joy in this world without experiencing the challenges of life. Through our suffering we gain important virtues; wisdom, compassion, love, charity, hope, faith, sacrifice, and many more.

"We have a Father in Heaven who loves us specifically and gives us things to do and, because he loves us, will cause us, at times, to have our souls stretched and to be fitted for a better world by coping with life in this world,” said Neal A. Maxwell.

This experience has transformed and empowered me. I would not trade this past year for all the wealth or power in the world. But, of course, if I had all that I would have the ability to shout from the rooftops three eternal laws from the New Testament which most people can agree with; Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.

And finally, there is a powerful statement in the book of Ephesians, which is a standard I hope to live by, which states, “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it.”

(Photo Right - Talking on the phone with my friend and former adult congenital cardiologist Michael Adjei-Poku.)