Chris Martin Update — February 1, 2010

Email received from Ray Martin. Ray and Christina are Chris’ dad and mom.

I just got back from visiting Chris in the Hospital.

The last several days he has been on the 3rd floor.  They put in a line from his neck to his heart.  At the end of the line, they had a  balloon.  I now know that the balloon in his heart was to measure the pressure in which the heart was beating.  They have been giving Chris oral medication which was not working.  For the last 3 days they gave him internal medication called Milrinone Lactate.  It doesn’t make your heart beat, it simply makes it beat harder in order for the oxygen to be delivered more efficiently.  It is given to Chris 24/7 with instructions on the machine administering the medication to never let this medication runnout.  Chris is almost his old self on this medication.

This means that the next step will be to put in a PICC line.  The PICC line will start from his neck and feed directly into his heart chamber.  The PICC line will be put into his heart via surgery.  His friend that he made while in the hospital had one put in and went home after a couple of days of receiving the PICC line.

This means that Chris will be place a little higher on the Heart Transplant list.  Yes, Chris will need a new heart.  Chris is taking this really well and can’t wait for the day when he will be better.  While we do not know for sure when he will have the heart transplant, it will be maybe 3 months or longer for the heart to come up that can be matched to Chris.  Chris is lucky that he is medium frame and only weighs 150 pounds.

Chris has a new room, 419.  His hospital room phone number is 415-600-8019.  OR, you can try his cell phone which is 510-672-6627.