Anyone who has met Glenn can attest to how big a heart he has. He’s always the first to offer a helping hand or lighten the mood with a well placed joke. We were unprepared, though, for “enlarged heart” (along with leaky, and weak) to become his literal diagnosis this year. For those new to the journey, we will try and provide a little of the back story here. For those who have been following along since May, we will jump to today and share that Glenn is currently in the Cardiac ICU at Froedtert Hospital in Milwaukee awaiting a heart transplant. He is currently a status “2.” We have been told they may have a new heart for him in as little as two weeks, but it could also take months. In the meantime, we are taking all the prayers, well wishes and positive energy you can muster.
As we have further updates we will share them here. We will soon be launching a fundraising campaign to help defray the costs. In the meantime, know that we are eternally grateful for the outpouring of love and support. A member of his transplant team shared last week that the old saying “it takes a village” is an apt one for the transplant journey, but that “instead of a village, it takes a city.” Thank you all for being a part of Glenn’s city.
Keep reading for a sum up on how we got here from Glenn…
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As you may know I’ve been retired since 2017, when I had yet another back surgery, this one a triple fusion. It was to repair damage from a single fusion done in the early 2000s. Unfortunately, the damage was done and after the last back surgery I was left with a lot of nerve damage and went on disability far before I had planned to retire. This was a blessing in disguise as both Mom and Dad needed help in their daily lives and now I, living a short distance away, was able to provide that daily care.
My main focus initially was caring for Mom and Dad during the week, and now just Mom sadly since Dad passed. The US does not provide elder care in the same manner as Denmark so it’s the responsibility of the family to provide that. Together the three of us kids provide our parents the best day to day care we can. Jo Ann is in town and does caregiving over the weekend. Susan helps a lot from a distance and comes down to assist when possible. I’m grateful both my sisters feel the same about elder care as I do. It’s much harder on them as they’re both working. Being retired I have had much more free time.
I thrust myself into mom’s care and being as healthy as I thought I could. I cooked everything from scratch for Mom. I worked out at the gym and walked Mom’s dog three miles a day. I finally stopped smoking and, in my eyes, I thought I was living a healthy life. Oh, how wrong I was. I was about to find out the damage was already done.
On May 7th after an especially busy day of disc golf with my friends and gardening, I woke up in the middle of the night with a terrible back ache that only got worse as the night went along. Thinking perhaps I overdid it, I suffered through the night, but by morning I could no longer bear the pain and drove myself to the walk-in clinic.
I thought I would get a strong pain reliever but instead was immediately bumped infront of the eight people there before me. Within minutes a doctor and nurse were taking my vitals and doing an EKG. The doctor left the room and came back saying he had just called the ambulance to take me to the hospital and asked that I put a pill under my tongue. “Why?” I asked. He told me I was having a heart attack and the pill was nitroglycerin. Still befuddled I asked “Are you sure it’s not just my back?” I had no chest pain, arm pain or anything I associated with a heart attack. Suddenly a fire truck and ambulance arrived and I found myself being loaded onto a stretcher and hooked up to all sorts of equipment.
If you know me, you know I really don’t like being the focus of attention but that is where I suddenly found myself with countless medical professionals snapping into action around me with my life as their only priority.
It began to dawn on me how serious this was. A cardiologist walked in and told me they were going to do a balloon angioplasty on me. Again… I asked “are we sure it’s not my back?” The procedure was stopped quickly and I was told there were too many blockages and I would need to be moved to Milwaukee for open heart surgery. At this point I’m in disbelief.
I’m brought to intensive care at the next hospital and within minutes my surgeon walks in (I didn’t even know I had a surgeon) to tell me they’re doing bypass surgery the next morning at 7 a.m. He says I saved my life going to the walk-in clinic and they saved it when I got there. My disbelief is now a realization that this could be life threatening. He told me not to worry, this was a common surgery, they do it all the time and are very good at it. The doctor said I’m young, in good shape, not overweight, and don’t smoke.
But there was another snag. They found a blood clot in my heart and I would spend another 5 days in intensive care. When I went home I was wearing a life vest that sent my EKG to the doctor’s office nonstop and contained a defibrillator to shock me back to life if I had another heart attack. Jeez, and here I thought I was living a much healthier life.
It took weeks for the clot to clear so I could have the surgery. I was ready to get this over with and start my road to recovery. On June 26th I had triple bypass surgery but ever since surgery I’ve been in and out of the hospital. As my heart weakened, its ability to effectively pump blood has resulted in fluid build up around my lungs especially. Difficulty breathing due to retained fluid has led to a number of emergency room visits that turned into multiple day hospital stays as my team of doctors tried to adjust my medications to deal with the fluids. The amount of time out of the hospital between visits was also shrinking which led to my being referred to the Advanced Heart Failure Clinic in Froedert Hospital. They had hoped early on that I would respond to medicine that is designed to help heal my heart. Unfortunately, it only made me sicker.
As of today (9/25/23) I’ve been put on the national heart transplant list and am awaiting a heart. Mine is too damaged from the heart attack to take me farther in life.
On Monday, September 25, I had a surgical procedure to insert a temporary pump in my heart. This should stabilize me enough to wait for one to become available. I’ll be in the ICU unit of the hospital until that time.
I’m overwhelmed with the outpouring of care and love, and am having a hard time keeping all those that have me in their heart updated. With that, Jo Ann and Susan wanted to set up a central site where any of you can go to see the latest on my condition. I would love to be able to be in contact with you all but I have to focus on my recovery right now and I hope you understand.
This has been the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through and I expect the near short term to be just as hard. I’m at one of the 4 best hospitals in the US for this and am told I’m a great candidate with a very high probability of success. This eases my anxiety a bit. Regardless, as it’s freaking me out a bit.
No matter how small or short time we’ve had together I’ve loved being a part of each and every one of your lives. Thank you for that.
We have been remiss in providing a post-op opdate, mostly because recovery for Glenn didn’t happen in a nice, straight line. The last three weeks have been quite the challenge. However! Things turned a corner earlier this week, very much for the better. Which bring us to today being release day!! Glenn is officially home!! His marching orders are all about the rehab and building back strength and endurance. Further updates from the man himself soon!
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