Bill Chalk's Heart Surgery Recovery Journey

The Chalk's are near and dear friends to many of us. My husband and I met Bill and Lorah over 10 years ago and they have been steadfast, godly friends. For those of you who know Bill, know that he is a generous man of action and will help anyone in need. Now it's our time to give to them whether thru prayer and/or financially. Bill spent about a week in ICU and is now in the cardiac unit stable...all praise to the Lord. Lorah has been by his side through it all. We want Lorah and Bill to be able to focus on his recovery without the added stress of medical bills.

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Here is a bit of the miraculous story for those of you who may not have heard:

On Tuesday (11/26), in the middle of the night, Bill woke up coughing up blood and feeling like he could not breath so they went to the Apex ER thinking it was pneumonia. The x-ray showed both lungs full of fluid.

He declined rapidly in the ER over the course of the day so he went by ambulance to Wake Med Cary to be admitted.

He was in the hospital room for a couple hours and continued to decline so they sent him to ICU.

There, the ICU Dr saw that it was not fluid from an infection but from heart failure. They couldn't stabilize him so they sent him by media vac on life support high flood oxygen to Wake Med Raleigh ICU.

By this time it’s middle of the night Wednesday. In the ICU they kept adding life saving devices but despite this he was never fully stabilized. He went to surgery Friday morning Nov.29. He was not really stable enough but it became a situation of he wouldn’t make it if they waited until he was stable enough.

They were unsure of exactly the procedure or scope of the surgery until the surgeon got in there.

In a huge answer to prayer it ended up being the best case possible. No infection of heart and the sudden heart failure was due to 4 tendons in the mitral valve snapping causing sudden heart failure.

The surgeon, who prayed for The Chalk's before and during the surgery, was able to repair the tendons and didn't have to replace anything and the procedure was “mini open heart” through his ribs not through the sternum.

They stayed in ICU until Tuesday (12/3) and now they are in the cardiac critical care unit now at least thru the weekend.