Richard F Smith Jr.

As many of you may already know, Mr. Rich Smith recently fell very ill.  We've been receiving an outpouring of love, support and prayers and many inquiries on his status at the moment, so we thought this would be a good way to get everyone updated!

On the morning of Saturday January 10th, Mrs. Smith brought Mr. Smith into Morristown Memorial because of stomach pain. Up until this point, he had had shortness of breath, insomnia and lethargy. They ran some tests and ended up admitting him into the Gagnon Cardiac ward for more testing, determining the cause of his calamities was not his lungs (as previously thought) and was in fact an arterial flutter in his heart.

During the course of the week, the doctors work to eliminate built up fluids that had leaked into his belly, as the doctors tried to find a solution as to how to fix the issue. Late night on Tuesday, his conditioned worsened, his symptoms including vomiting, disorientation and cold sweats. The doctors proceeded to move him to the Cardiac Care Unit, where they would be able to monitor him more closely and figure out what was actually happening. About 30 minutes after he was moved, he went into cardiac arrest and his pulse was lost. There was a code blue called and the doctors worked for 20 minutes doing compressions to try to bring back his heart beat. 

After about 25 minutes of compressions, the doctors came out to us and said that they've done all that they can do and they need permission to stop trying. There could be a significant amount of brain damage after this point, so they didn't see him coming back...to which everyone vehemently said, "Keep trying, keep trying!" So, as the doctors are telling us there's no hope, a nurse comes running out, "We've found a pulse!" 

The doctors worked very hard and very quickly to get him stabilized, he was put on a respirator to help his lungs and a monitor was put in to measure his blood pressure. A swan catheter was also implanted in his heart to more accurately monitor the activity of his heart. As a result of his cardiac arrest, the doctors concluded that he had severe heart failure, kidney failure and liver failure. He received two cat scans to rule out any intestinal problems, and it came back clean, which clears up any possibility of having to undergo surgery.

Presently, Mr. Smith is sedated and on dialysis to help his kidneys function and is also on the respirator to continue to support his lungs. His kidneys and liver are still down but we are hoping their function will improve! They have seemingly determined that there is an infection that they cannot pinpoint and they are going through a series of antibiotics to try to find the source of the infection and how it needs to be treated.   Right now it's a bit of a waiting game to see how much he improves and we're pulling for the best! Any good thoughts and prayers will be greatly appreciated!! The hospital would like us to keep visitors at a minimum, so if you would like to see him please contact us directly so we can coordinate!

Sláinte 

Much love,
The Smittys