Support Nicki's Critical Heart Surgery Journey

Last week Friday, my amazing wife Nicki suffered a major health emergency. Her heart started going haywire, and her defibrillator fired in a lifesaving series of 18 shocks. Once the ambulance got her to the ER in La Grange, her heart was racing at 240 to 250 beats a minute. The ER quickly got her heart under control but found a bacterial infection in her blood. She was transferred to Hinsdale Hospital to do an angiogram to make sure there were no blockages in her arteries. Thank God there were none. Then on to trying to find the location and/or cause of the infection. After a couple of tests, we had that answer today. The infection was attached to her defibrillator, which caused the leads running into her heart to introduce that bacterial infection into her bloodstream. Thank God it was caught because untreated, that most likely would have turned into sepsis.

So the course of treatment was decided to use a procedure called AngioVac to basically, for lack of better terms, go in and suck as much infection out from around the lead as they can. Then they will go in and use a laser to extract the leads and remove the defibrillator. At this point, she is unprotected, so they put a "lifevest" on her—basically a wearable external defibrillator—while they clear the rest of the infection out of my bride's body. Once clear, they will go back in and implant a new defibrillator and leads. But Hinsdale doesn't have the ability to do that there, so she was transferred to U of Chicago Downtown.

So your generosity will greatly help with gas, parking, lost income and food

The surgery probably won't take place until sometime next week. University of Chicago is wanting to redo some of the testing already done, as they want certain imaging that maybe Hinsdale didn't do.

Here is where this GoFundMe comes in. As of yesterday the 8th, I had 39 hours of vacation left. That means my vacation time will run out sometime on Tuesday. I do not want to be put in a position to have to say, "Sorry honey, I have to go back to work." FMLA is unpaid and will protect my position at my job while I take the time off. I feel like I have no choice but to go that route. I know her mom and sister and friends can always go down and be there in my place. I don't want to leave her side. I would like to have the freedom to stay the night if I want. Parking at the hospital is $24 a day, then whatever food in the cafeteria costs.

Also, once she's home, I once again don't want to be put in a position to have to run back to work.

Please share our story wherever you can and help us out. Thank you, and we love you all.