Our friend is alive and well, in stable condition and improving slowly every day. He's 36 years old, and has been my best friend in the world since 5th grade... shut up with the age jokes! :) I can't articulate with words what he means to me and everyone who know shim, nor how brutal these past few days have been for all of us.
He very nearly didn't make it in the early hours of Wednesday morning, and the nurse told us to call whomever we needed to and do it quickly. Two hours later she came out of the OR clapping and smiling and said "Whatever you people did out here must have worked, because we've got him back." One moment he was essentially gone after bleeding out for a good part of 4 hours, the next, he was stable. I don't use the word miracle a lot, ever really, but i don't know...
To male a VERY long story short here's the skinny; He'd had some abdominal pain last week which they thought might be his gall bladder, upon further testing he was found to have and aneurysm on his heart and an aortic dissection:
Aortic dissection is a tear in the wall of the aorta that causes blood to flow between the layers of the wall of the aorta and force the layers apart. Aortic dissection is a medical emergency and can quickly lead to death, even with optimal treatment. If the dissection tears the aorta completely open (through all three layers), massive and rapid blood loss occurs. Aortic dissections resulting in rupture have an 80% mortality rate, and 50% of patients die before they even reach the hospital. If the dissection reaches 6 cm, the patient must be taken for emergency surgery.
It's basically what John Ritter had and died from.We all wanna send out an endless THANK YOU to those of you who have sent us well wishes and kind words via comment, email or even a silent and unspoken "I hope he get's better." It's a beautiful thing when strangers can give you a piece of their hearts like that.
Cheers for now, and as things keep improving, I'll be excited to start watching some horror again!
