californiahapamama

It’s called an Intra Aortic Balloon Pump (IABP). Basically it helped push blood through your heart so it didn’t have to work so hard.

VADs come with their own set of issues though.

My husband was on ECMO for 9 days with femoral catheters. I completely understand. He had those braces on both legs because one of the meds they had him on was making him jerk occasionally.

I learned a lot about the various circulatory support devices in the 5 1/2 weeks he was in the CVICU. There were a lot of people in there who were either waiting for heart transplants or had just gotten one.

He's doing better now. He had a STEMI, spent an addition 4 weeks with an RVAD, but from a cardiac standpoint is doing okay. The brain injury from going into cardiac arrest is the bigger issue at this point, but all things considered he is doing pretty well.