Page Sessoms

So most of you have heard, but for those who have not, in the early morning hours (4am) on Jan 1, 2018, Page had to be taken to the hospital via ambulance for the worst pain in his back he had ever experienced. Once at St. Joseph’s Hospital/ Candler, he was quickly diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm, and no function of one kidney. Dr. Yates (CV surgeon) took him emergently to the OR and found  a ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. While the rupture was contained, he ended up having 9 hours of surgery to place a graft and stop the bleeding. During the surgery, it was necessary to restrict the blood flow to the functioning kidney for a period of time.

With only one kidney that appeared to be working, he has needed to be placed on continuous dialysis (CVVH) since 1/3/2018 and remains on it. Pray for Pee! He has not yet made his own, it will be a good sign when he does. We remain hopeful that his one good kidney will eventually recover and will follow his progress over time.

Page did initially have some elevation in his Liver Function Tests, but now all the levels are within normal range! We are thrilled with that news.

Living moment to moment in the ICU, things can change rapidly, and as I write this it is very difficult to type. On Thursday night (1/4/2018), Page took a wrong turn for the worse. His blood had too much acid in it, he required 100% oxygen, and honestly we thought he would die. Late that night he was taken back to surgery since it appeared that his colon (large bowel) was compromised and they removed part of his colon. 

Post-op (Day 6 from AA repair and Day 3 on resection of the colon- which was on 1/7/2018)  he remains in the intensive care unit, requiring a breathing tube and ventilator support.  At his worst point he was requiring 100% oxygen to stay alive. We take are happy with the baby steps on weaning his respiratory support and his oxygen requirement (60%). He requires medications placed in the ventilator circuit  (aerosol treatments) to help his lungs function better. We are hopeful this will continue to help his baby steps of “weaning” or decreasing, the amount of support he needs from the ventilator.

Obviously through all of this Page has remained asleep, sedated and with pain control (or an induced coma). He has not had his sedation decreased (not been woken up, or given a sedation holiday) since he continues to have significantly high ventilator settings. Also, when the sedation is lightened a bit, he bucks and fights the ventilator (anyone who knows Page will not be surprised by this).

Page is obviously critically ill and we still have a medical journey ahead of us, that we will need all your Prayers, Good Karma, Best Wishes…etc.

Thanks so much, anything you can offer will help, including prayers, good thoughts, white light, and good karma.
Will be updating this site as often as I can.

Hugs,
Jenifer