Donny had hospital follow up visit at Sanford Fargo today.  His Mayo cardiologist, Dr. Cannon flys to Fargo once a month to see patients there.

Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation is the diagnosis for Donny at this point.  Meaning they have ruled everything else out that could have caused this to happen. As some of you know, an AED only shocks ventricular fibrillation and ventricular tachycardia.  It doesn't shock asystole (flat line.) V-fib is often pulseless and Donny did not have a pulse when he collapsed. He had 15 minutes of CPR manually and with a Lucas and eventually the AED advised a shock. The question is did he go down from v-fib or did some other electrical problem lead to asystole (flat line) and the CPR put him in to v-fib so he could be shocked?.... we don't know.  Our genetic testing results show that we do not have anything ( currently known in medicine from a genetic standpoint)  that puts us at risk for heart problems or certain channelopathies like Brugada syndrome that was once mentioned as a possible diagnosis. And he has had endless tests looking for structural issues and also had his heart challenged many times, today again, to try and induce something.... nothing.  He is healthy.   So the diagnosis that fits best right now is idiopathic (no known reason ) ventricular fibrillation (fast, erratic heartbeat in ventricles that is often pulseless, lethal and can be shocked.) We have signed papers for all our genetic testing to be in medical research at Mayo. Their is still a lot in medicine we do not know. Dr. Cannon told Donny "you are a one in a million kid." I think he is pretty special too. ♥️

Dr. Cannon gave Donny the go ahead to resume life as normal, football too,  with no restrictions. His sternum is healed well.  As his mom, both  exciting and frightening. Donny is scared too.  Scared he won't be as good, scared he has all this stuff in him and mainly that no one knows why it happened.  Also frightening was hearing Dr. Cannon say 40% chance it will happen again but we don't know triggers as we don't know why this happened. He said "this is just as likely to happen in math class as it is on the football field in your case.  That is what the defibrillator is for." Despite some fear, Donny wants to play football. As his mom playing and not playing scare me as both have risks..... 
Even though Donny said he is playing Dr. Cannon said "start football and if it causes you too much anxiety it's ok to do something else." He also had a long conversation with us again about post cardiac arrest grief.  I appreciate his attention to the emotional side of this.  This is being addressed with behavioral health as well.  We have to try and focus on the 60% chance this will never happen again and that he has a device constantly monitoring and recording the electrical activity in his heart.  His device doesn't just shock it also paces (if needed)  and corrects electrical issues.  They have his callibrated for a athlete so it doesn't get alarmed over  fast normal rhythms.  I have asked repeatedly about success rates of defibrillators and they just tell me very good but nothing in 100% 

Picture is in the office today.  The little machine on Donny's belly connected with his defibrillator and interrogated it, challenged it and made it take over beating his heart. He said it felt weird... I'd imagine so but his face didn't say so. He sat there cool as a clam as usual.  Dr. Cannon still gets a kick out of his quiet personality. 

We appreciate all the thoughts, prayers and generosity we have received from our  friends, family and community.  We can't thank you all enough.