Randy Reese

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


We find ourselves at a place that while sudden to us, must not have been for Randy's body.


On June 19, Randy had cataract surgery in his left eye in hopes of improving his poor eyesight (poor eyesight because of diabetic retinopathy).   That surgery went well, but unrelated to that, a few weeks later, his right eye hemorrhaged, causing him to be blind in that eye until the blood drained.  Just as he was beginning to see better in that right eye, the same kind of hemorrhage happened in the left eye, causing temporary blindness in that eye.  A vitrectomy  was done in September, to remove the vitreous in the right eye, replacing it with saline.  That allows the blood to drain more quickly.  He had this done in his left eye 4-5 years ago.   The sight was still very slow to come back.  After healing from the vitrectomy, it was determined that there was a film over the lens implanted for the cateract surgery, so laser surgery was scheduled for November 20.  Our expectation was that his vision would greatly improve after that surgery.  It did not, but he can at least see to drive now and to read a little.  The computer is still very hard on his eyes.


All of this is background to the main event (I thought the eyes were the main event!).  For at least 6 months, we've noticed that Randy has been tired a lot and couldn't walk very far at all without stopping to rest.   When I asked Randy to talk to his doc about it, his answer was always, "I'm  just out of shape.  I'll talk to him when I get through all of this vision stuff."  So, the day after laser surgery, he called his GP on his own.  Little did I know that by this time, he had to rest at least a couple of times when going up the stairs to our bedroom and even to get from his truck in Calvary's side parking lot to the door.  


So on Nov 21, his doctor saw serious stuff and began to order immediate tests.  This is the bottom line and where we are today.  Randy has Congestive Heart Failure.  His ejection factor (how effective the heart is working) was at 20%.  That's bad.  Very bad.  Once an MRI was done to see how bad the heart is, the cardiologist put him in the hospital and began draining fluid.  He was admitted on Nov. 29th, the day after Thanksgilving.   Within 3 days, he had lost 20 pounds in fluid!  That's after his primary doc had given him Lasix the week before, in which Randy lost 13 pounds of fluid, for a total of 33 pounds of fluid!


The cardiologist determined that he needed bypass surgery asap, but his heart wasn't strong enough to do it until they 'tuned it up' and got the fluid off.  That surgery took place yesterday, Dec. 3.  They did 4 bypasses.  A surgery that was supposed to take 5 hours took 7 hours.  It was quite a stressful day.  Because his heart is so weak (and will likely continue to be....although it should improve a little), the doc is taking his time getting him off of the ventilator and therefore slow on waking him up.  He'll be in ICU for at least a few more days and in the hospital several days after that.  The good news is that post surgery, his ejection factor is 30%  That's a great improvement!  It's certainly not ideal and still means his heart is weak, but it's an improvement!


So today they are trying to keep him comfortable while not so comfy that his blood pressure bottoms out.....and not restless so that the blood pressure gets too high.  It's quite the balancing act.  I just sit here and watch.....and hold his hand, of course.


Our God is a mighty God and Randy had the peace of Jesus going into this surgery.  It does look like he may miss his birthday, which is today.....I don't think he'll be too upset about that.  Thank you so much for your prayers.