Saturday, September 09, 2006

Heart Surgery

My dad just had heart surgery yesterday. A bout of shortness of breath on one of his rambling walks this spring was diagnosed by early August as blockages on three of his coronary arteries, and possibly a fourth. The only reason it took so long was his physician idiotically referred him to an intern instead of a specialist and that resulted in a delay of four months. Anyway, he eventually got scheduled for an angiogram, and then the surgery itself was delayed a few weeks while a kidney infection was treated.

All is supposedly well, the surgery took three hours and he had three bypasses. They took veins out of his leg. Sounds gross but its fascinating – veins are so stretchy you can remove a few inches and tie the ends together with no repercussions. I thought they would have to insert plastic veins or something. The human body is amazing.

They asked him to arrive at the hospital at 6am, but didn’t get him into the theatre until almost ten o’clock. I can only imagine how nerve wracking it must have been waiting for three hours!

What really freaks me out is the thought of my dad with his breastbone sliced in half and the surgeon fiddling around on his heart while some machine does the breathing and pumping. In the realm of shudder-inducing images, that one reigns supreme.

In any case he emerged from the OR in fine form, wired up to about thirty machines. We got to see him after he was “ready” (whatever that means) and in the Intensive Care Unit. He still had the respirator on and was sedated, but aside from the tube going into his mouth, he looked fast asleep. His colour was good, which surprised me. I thought he’d be pale or off-colour somehow.

Now the waiting game begins, while they ease him off the respirator (was supposed to happen last night) and then settle him into the regular recovery ward for a week or so.

My mom was a complete basket case for the past few weeks anticipating this surgery and worrying that my dad would have a heart attack before he got to the table. Hopefully she got a decent rest last night.

1 Comments:

Blogger wthenrest said...

My thoughts and hugs are with you and the family. If he is pink and looks good ...I would say that is very positive. The body is an amazing piece of machinery. I am sure he will recover well.

11:52 p.m.  

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