Speaker 1 [01:01:53]
What was the emotional impact of your loved one receiving the LVAD?
Speaker 2 [01:01:56]
Well I would say the emotional impact that it had on our family was just kind of the uncertainty of what would happen when he was first diagnosed with heart failure. You know we were kind of thrown for a loop and you think about what what does that mean. Is he going to die. And I think we you know we wrestled with some of those emotions that we had. But we knew that we wanted to prolong his life as long as possible and to give him the best quality of life. And so we really discussed that as a family and decided that the L Dad would be the best way for us to move forward to give him that quality of life that he had been used to and that we had been used to as a family was not an easy decision to make at first.
But again talking with the doctors and the nurses we really felt that that was the best way to give him that quality of life. And we definitely would make the same decision again. Because as I said it really gave him the quality of life that we were accustomed to. He can still go places and we could still go with friends and family and we could still do things and it didn't limit us the way that his diagnosis did before the LVAD where he could barely walk he could barely breathe. And that was really limiting and to know that he can now go out we can do things the same way that we did before. That was really you know a game changer for us.
Speaker 1 [01:03:37]
Before your loved one received the LVAD, what did you think you would need to do to support them?
Speaker 2 [01:01:56]
Before he received the LVAD for us it was more of am I going to need to be home all the time or we're going to need to have a nurse all of the time. And what would that look like for our life. And I think having the doctors explain everything to us and giving us details that it would not impact our lives as much as I had anticipated was very helpful to us. So we ask lots of questions. Did the reality differ from your expectations. Yes. No. Yes in the sense that it made me really nervous but no because I asked lots of questions and the doctors and the nurses walked us through everything. I posed every imaginable scenario to them when it came to caring for him and how that would impact our life and they really talked us through that.
Speaker 1 [01:04:39]
What does your average day like While caring for someone with an LVAD?
Speaker 2 [01:04:41]
The day to day process of caring for someone with an LVAD is just making sure that the batteries are charged to making sure that you know how much battery life you have and how far you can go with before you can change the batteries. So I think for us it just kind of held us closer to home for a little while until we got really comfortable with that. Our family's lives somewhat close so you know we were still able to visit friends and family by knowing how much battery life we had.
Speaker 1 [01:05:20]
Did you seek out support?
Speaker 2 [01:05:26]
Not really. We didn't really seek out structured support groups. But we have lots of support with our friends and family. You know my husband's family lives only three hours away. My family only lives an hour and a half away. So that was really instrumental for us as well as having family that was really close by and to be able to support us.
Speaker 1 [01:05:46]
How did your loved one getting the Alvare impact you financially?
Speaker 2 [01:05:51]
Getting the LVAD really did not impact our financial situation. Our insurance paid for everything we utilized. You know the different copays and things of that nature. And my husband would have been able to work if he chose to do that and it really. So in that sense it did not impact our financial situation.