Ryan's Birthday 2001 Party

Some of you may not be aware that Ryan has been going through a bunch of fairly unpleasant stuff during the last half of September up to now. I purposefully didn't take pictures, because its not the kind of thing you want to be reminded about. On September 12th, Ryan went into Providence Portland Hospital to have open-heart surgery to replace a faulty mitral valve (the one between the left atrium and left ventricle). This is the same surgery his mom had on Ryan's birthday in 1982. Now, of course, the surgery is much more routine and artificial valves have improved greatly. It's still very scary, however. We were at the hospital when Ryan came out of surgery and were able to see him in 15 minute segments of time. He was out just a few hours and they were talking about pulling his breathing tube and some of the drainage tubes, when the doctors decided they might have a "bleeder" in his chest cavity. He went back into surgery, and was opened up again to correct what turned out to be a minor blood vessel leaking on his rib cage. He was back in recovery in another few hours to continue his recuperation. Shortly thereafter, the doctors removed his breathing tube. He continued to improve throughout the next few days, but doctors were reluctant to pull one of the drainage tubes in his chest that was there to remove air that leaked out of the lungs. On Monday, the 17th, they finally decided the air leak had sufficiently sealed itself, pulled the chest tube and released him from the hospital.

Obviously, Sarah was at the hospital pretty much continuously (except for going home to sleep) until Ryan was released. Sarah's parents were a great comfort to her and spent almost as much time at the hospital as Sarah did (I have some great in-laws). It was great for her to be able to take Ryan home and help him upstairs to bed.

At about 2:00 a.m. on Wednesday morning, September 19th, JoAnn, Sarah's mom called me to say "The nothing to panic about, but Ryan is back in the hospital". It turned out that Ryan had his left lung collapse. Ryan had been in bed and he noticed that when he exhaled, there was a "hissing" sound. Without any of the other symptoms (he was still fairly heavily medicated), he and Sarah figured it was time to check with the doctor. They ended up going to the Salem Hospital at about 11:00 on Tuesday night. Sarah said that on the X-Ray, his left lung showed up about the size of a fist in the corner of his chest cavity. The chest tube had to be reinstalled to allow the lung to re-inflate. Because it was caught so soon, there was no permanent damage. It was "touch and go" for nine days with the threat of surgery to open up his chest again to solve the problem with the collapsed lung. The doctors suspected that the lung was punctured during the "closing" process after his surgery and just hadn't healed as quickly as they had expected. It is a fairly common occurrence. Ryan was finally released from Salem Hospital on September 27th.

On October 11th, Ryan had a routine appointment with his pulmonary doctor, who didn't like the way Ryan's heart was beating . . . he was experiencing atrial fibrillation . . . so, once again was readmitted to Salem Hospital. The problem was solved by "zapping" Ryan's heart (cardioversion), twice, with an electric charge while Ryan was sedated. The second "zap" apparently worked and when Ryan come to, his heart was beating properly again. He was released from the hospital on October 12th.

Sarah had to go back to work on October 15th and Ryan is returning to his job on November 13th.

As you can see by the pictures below, Ryan has pretty much fully recovered on his birthday. He still has some sore chest muscles and, of course, he will forever have to stay on blood thinners to prevent blood from clotting on the artificial valve.

Ross, Heather, Mary (Sr.) and I came to the party at Ryan and Sarah's place in Salem. Sarah's folks ( George and JoAnn) unfortunately (for us) were committed to another activity, so weren't there.

It is always great to get together with the kids as they are getting on with their own lives. Sarah insisted that we wear party hats (well, actually we had to fake the pictures at the end of the party because she forgot! Shame!) Ryan then opened his cards and gifts.

Sarah had won a cake on a radio call-in contest of some sort and was entitled to a free birthday cake from Albertsons. Ryan ordered the cake from the store and asked them to put "Happy Birthday, Ryan" on it. We all thought that was funny. They didn't ask for his first name as the person ordering the cake. He said he'd have said "Ross" if they asked.

The cake was fired up and brought into the room by Sarah as all sang a wonderfully bad rendition of "Happy Birthday To You", a tradition in the Ryan and Sarah household. For being a free cake, it tasted great. We also had a little ice cream with it.