Post Open Heart Surgery Recovery and Rehab for Stefan Stevic

Hey there family and friends near and far,

As some of you may know, on July 12th Stefan had open heart surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm and also to save a leaking valve.

Thanks to the wonderful work by his surgical team at Toronto General Hospital, the procedure was successful. Stefan came to the Cardiovascular ICU to begin what we believed would be a smooth 1-2 week post-op stay before coming home with us to rest and recover. He was determined to challenge physio with everything he's got to get back to work and doing the things he loves.

On paper, his progress the evening after his procedure was going better than his care team could have imagined. Unfortunately, during that first evening, he developed a fever that spiraled into severe pneumonia, multiple infections, blood clots and multi-organ failure.

His body fell into sepsis so quickly that the team in the ICU had to medically paralyze and sedate him. Through a ventilator and 24 hour dialysis, they manually kept his organs working all while doing everything in their power to identify and treat what turned out to be 3 different bacterial infections in his blood and lungs. That Saturday morning they placed him in a medically induced coma and we did not see him wake up until just shy of a month later.

With the amazing work and efforts made by the nurses and care team at the TGH CVICU, and of course Stefan's strength and determination to fight - during his 4th weekend in ICU Stefan was able to wake up.

To go from his Doctors telling us he has a small chance of surviving to leave the ICU, to now have him on the recovery ward and talking to us has been an emotional roller-coaster we are eternally grateful for each and every day.

The road to recovery has just begun, and the journey is going to be significantly longer than we could have ever imagined. Once he is able, his next steps will be attending a rehab facility specializing in post-cardiac procedure care to regain mobility and strengthen his motor skills.

In order to continue working with the amazing team that have saved Stefan's life, we will be continuing his care in Toronto. While we had originally planned and saved for something much different, traveling and time off work while he recovers has changed the situation greatly.

As someone who never hesitates to lend a helping hand, always putting others before himself, Stefan often struggles to ask for help even when he needs it most. To help him with this transition, we have organized this page in the hope that he may focus on his recovery without having to worry about finances.

Thank you all for the love, prayers, well wishes and beautiful messages of strength and courage coming his way. ❤️