Cheney has not decided whether he wants a heart transplant

[malaise]

according to GEM$NBC - he's still in ICU.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

1. He has been in ICU a long time. Is that normal for this procedure?

[malaise]

I know nothing about the procedure

but the bell will soon toll for the Dick. He's way more serious than the reports suggest.
They've been lying big time for two weeks - I mean who the hell sends out his/her own release while still in ICU will all of that equipment and tubes?

[City Lights]

16. Here's some info from the Mayo Clinic:

After the procedure

When you wake up from your surgery, you'll be in the intensive care unit (ICU). You'll stay in the ICU for several days, where you'll be fed and given fluids and medications through an intravenous (IV) line. You'll have a tube in your bladder to drain your urine and other tubes in your chest to drain fluid and blood. Your lungs may not work properly immediately after your surgery, so you may need to remain connected to a ventilator for a few more days until you're able to breathe on your own.

After a few days in the ICU, you'll likely be moved to a regular hospital room. As you recover, nurses will help you become increasingly active. They may help you get out of bed, sit up and walk around the hallways of the hospital. You may also have visits with a physical therapist to help you continue to gain strength and get used to performing daily activities. The amount of time you'll spend in the ICU and in the hospital can vary, depending on your condition before the procedure and how well you recover after your LVAD is placed.

You'll likely be prescribed antibiotics and blood-thinning medications to prevent infection and other complications while you're in the hospital. Your doctor will order blood tests periodically to check your kidney function and to make sure your medications are effective.

While you're recovering in the hospital, it can be helpful to have friends and family visit. Visitors can help you perform some physical activities, and they can learn to help you care for your LVAD when you go home.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/lvad/MY01077/DSECTION=what-you-can-expect

[malaise]

22. And yet the Dick sent out

his own press release. He really is the 'Undead Dick'.

[karynnj]

57. Wow, that really is very very unpleasant and far more drastic

than the casual TV reports would suggest.

[Warpy]

46. It's fairly normal for a VIP having this procedure

but especially one who was probably days from death (maybe hours). ICU has great security.

Also, he's in tough shape, overall. Continuing to smoke after heart attacks and a bypass was a monumentally stupid thing to do. Not only are all his arteries clogged, his lungs are probably pretty damaged. In addition, he's obese and you know he's sedentary. All of that adds to an ICU stay. It's also heart surgery, involving opening the left ventricle and suturing a tube into it, meaning the same recovery as any other open heart surgery.

All these things add up to a long ICU stay and being a sick man tethered to a machine. The rest of his life will be dictated by how long his batteries will last. The rest of the time, his world will be his bedroom and his only security will be a console plugged into the wall.

You've got to admit it's a hell of a prison.

[totodeinhere]

49. And regardless of what he has done, and he has done immeasurable damage to this country,

I can't help but feel sorry for any human being in that condition. But it's just too bad that during his long political career he didn't show some of that same compassion for others.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

50. I'm just thinking about when my dad had quadruple bypass and his stay was ...

.... less than a week? I think.

I have heard some people experience a gain in overall health with these contraptions. Even to the extent of having the heart "heal" enough to NOT need a transplant.

I think Sixty Minutes did a story about how these machines improve other functions (kidneys etc.). So much in some people that doctors are considering using them as a kind of "heart holiday" to give the heart a rest in people who don't necessarily need a transplant but have other major system weakness.

[Warpy]

58. We had "fast track" bypass patients who were in great shape

who were discharged 48 hours after their surgeries. We had more of them than you'd expect.

Cheney is not in great shape or even fair shape. He was close to death, which is why they did this desperate thing to him.

That's why he's still in the ICU, that and security.

[w8liftinglady]

61. that's been my experience as well(I did a lot of post-transplant biopsies)

lungs were usually the kids-hearts were either older guys in good condition otherwise,or younger ones with some kind of abnormality.A patient like Cheney would have gotten a heart only if no one else matched it(highly unlikely)

[Bloofer_Lady]

2. Maybe...

...he'll receive a heart from a dead soldier and he'll become possessed. Would make for a great horror novel!

[grahamhgreen]

7. Love it!

[Historic NY]

3. Pretty good trick finding a heart for the heartless.

[Name removed]

42. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[bdamomma]

4. well this could be Dick's hell on earth, his health is failuring.

but I bet he will continue to get the very best care.:puke:

[grahamhgreen]

5. TYPO - should read "heart implant"!

:hi:

[tabasco]

6. Let the Iraqi people decide.

Cheney said they would love their American liberators.

[malaise]

10. Best suggestion ever

:hi:

[Donnachaidh]

8. there are 6 THOUSAND people ahead of him

It should not BE up to him.

[Maru Kitteh]

27. Shouldn't be, but it is. If Dick Cheney wants a heart, yet one more person will die because of him

More than half waiting for organs die without them - but Dick don't need no stinkin' guidelines. He'll get a heart, if he wants one.

[Donnachaidh]

45. that really, REALLY pisses me off - but you are right.

I think I may have to go unpack my kid's punching bag. And print out a face to tape to it. :grr:

[Warpy]

59. Not that simple

Heart transplantation is still a finicky business, requiring not only the usual tissue typing but even more precise matches, making sure the donor hadn't been exposed to a few viruses out there the recipient hasn't, viruses that are easy to survive in healthy people but efficient killers of people on large doses of antirejection drugs, and size compatibility.

You can't just have somebody whacked to get a heart and you can't just grab the first one that becomes available.

[PuraVidaDreamin]

51. Some young unfortunate Halliburton Schmuck w/ same blood type may meet

an untimely death.

[lonestarnot]

9. hmmmmf.

[guitar man]

11. My dad didn't want one

He had a bypass surgery around 92 and another one in 99. After they had cracked his chest open twice he said no more, he'd had enough.

[malaise]

14. My coworker had major heart surgery

in May - he told me he had never experienced pain like that in his life. He was allergic to the first set of pain-killers they gave him and said he was afraid to breathe because that created pain that he had never contemplated in life.

[guitar man]

21. yeah it must be awful

Dad bounced back from his first bypass pretty well but he was never the same after the second one. When the doc mentioned a transplant Dad said "you better keep that knife in your pocket or you'll wind up with it stuck in your ass!" lol

he was quite a character

[malaise]

26. I think I'd have liked your dad

My coworker is in his 50s and he's a vegetarian who exercises every day. You'd never look at him and think heart attack. He just felt a strange pain and decided to have some tests done. The results were so bad that they operated in two days.
His dad had a heart attack at the same age but survived into his 90s.

[guitar man]

33. He was an ornery old cuss

Trucker, Teamster, advocate for the working class. Didn't take any crap off of anybody. They don't make em like that anymore :)

[CountAllVotes]

32. that is the thing about surgeries

sometimes the pain you go through is worse than the initial event that led to the surgery.

Gosh, I should know! :(

:kick:

[Warpy]

60. We'd often combine the maximum doses of more than one narcotic

in order to get people so they weren't terrified of breathing and moving, something they had to do to stay alive. Getting people out of bed with chest tubes, pacemakers attached to wires exiting their chests, and all sorts of other hoses and tubes was a project. Add poorly treated pain to that and it was impossible.

[City Lights]

12. He's not a good candidate.

A heart transplant isn't the right treatment for everyone, however. Certain factors may mean you're not a good candidate for a heart transplant. While each case is considered individually by a transplant center, factors that could prevent you from having a heart transplant include:

* Being age 65 or older
* Having another medical condition that could shorten life, regardless of receiving a donor heart
* Poor blood circulation
* Personal medical history of cancer
* Being unwilling or unable to make lifestyle changes necessary to keep your donor heart healthy

http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-transplant/MY00361/DSECTION=why-its-done

[malaise]

17. Have you noticed that he's not

at his regular hospital?

[City Lights]

29. I haven't really paid attention to that detail.

They've disclosed his location this time? ;-)

[sharp_stick]

34. That's just because his regular hospital

doesn't do the LVAD procedure. I think there are only a few places in the country that implant these devices.

[HCE SuiGeneris]

13. C ya Voldemort n/t

[tabasco]

15. It should go to a younger, healthier candidate,

Just like AWOL Bush jumped to the head of the line to get in the champagne National Guard unit, Cheney will do the same.

[get the red out]

18. x

[HCE SuiGeneris]

19. Too

It's not two, or to.

[Maru Kitteh]

28. +1

To recap:

I want to get out of here.

She wants to leave too.

The two of us will be leaving.

[get the red out]

35. x

x

[malaise]

36. I'm a grammar fan myself but in the context of your recent loss

I'll join with that FU.

[get the red out]

39. x

x

[HCE SuiGeneris]

38. I'll take that.

It's deserved.

Sorry for your loss.

I am also sorry for your inability to take more care in how you express yourself.

[malaise]

20. Deepest sympathy on your dad's passing

:grouphug:

Link to the Dick's story
http://www.fox13now.com/news/nationworld/sc-dc-0716-cheney-20100715,0,2191338.story

[livetohike]

23. My sympathy on the loss of your Dad

:hug: I hope the good memories of his life will help erase the sadness of the past few weeks.

[napi21]

24. I got the impression his veins weren't in very good shape either.

He's had at least one peceedure to open them up due to build up. That alone would keep him off the list I would think.

[CountAllVotes]

25. maybe they can use cadaver veins

they do they with end-stage kidney dialysis patients who have no veins left. How is that for creepy as all hell?

[bdamomma]

30. oh, my deepest sympathy to you.

:-(

[SPedigrees]

31. to weak or not to weak, that is the question..

I'm very sorry about your dad.

[NightWatcher]

37. I'm sure he could afford a Chinese black market heart

And send a jet to pick it up....

If he wanted too

[Rabrrrrrr]

40. How can he get a transplant? Wouldn't it just be an installation?

Transplant assumes that there's one to take out and replace it with a new one.

[joeybee12]

55. Indeed. +1

[Fire1]

41. Didn't the media "disreport" that he was too old for a transplant?

[UTUSN]

43. msRnc said he could LIVE FOR YEARS if he decides to get one. n/t

[piratefish08]

44. it's a risky operation. I say GO FOR IT!

[w8liftinglady]

47. Ok-I've tried to stay out of this one-as a nurse with a lot of experience in this area...

Off the record,I am Cheney's biggest critic-he is personally responsible for The iraq war.
As a nurse,I would commend him if he choses not to get a transplant.When a proper heart transplant candidate gets a transplant,they do really well(much better than lung transplants).I would like to believe that he is recognizing that it may be the one good thing he's done with his life-save the heart for a younger candidate with perhaps a shorter illness period...oh,yeah...and a soul.

[bdamomma]

52. so at his age his prognosis is not very good. huh?

could he live with the LVAD?

[w8liftinglady]

53. well...considering the copious amount of issues he has had..we are not informed

http://www.doctorzebra.com/prez/a_cheney.htm

(and this is only as of 2006)

[bdamomma]

56. wow,after looking at that, he is not a good candidate at all.

[Warpy]

62. I keep pointing out what a poor risk he'd be

Even if he got off the table alive, he'd never survive the recovery period. It would be a waste of a good organ and I think most transplant surgeons and the organ banks would recognize that going in.

I think Cheney has been told what a poor risk he is and is probably contemplating the fact of what cracking his chest open again would do to him. At some point even a soulless bastard realizes he's been through enough and that's it.

[mtnester]

48. My grandfather before he died, had scarlet fever as a child

that is when he got his heart damage.

When it started to show up in his older years, he golfed, was a vegetarian, had never drank or smoked a day in his life, was active, and healthy as a horse except for the damage he got to his heart when he was little.

Problem is, he was over 65. He was actually 68.

No heart for him. Even though he would have taken precious care of it. Even though he was a HECK of a candidate for it.

My neighbor at our last house smoked, drank and never exercised. He was 58..he got a heart, he never took care of it, never started exercising, never stopped smoking. He died in two years.

Life many times is not fair.

I expect Cheney is not a candidate for a transplant, so the decision is really not his to make. They are just making it sound like it is.

[Hannah Bell]

54. no, he's a candidate. those rules are just for the lowly people.