Dad

Hey guys,

So as some of you know my dad had a heart attack last Wednesday. He and my mom were just laying in bed getting ready to go to sleep when he had a sharp pain in his chest, he sat up and it went away so he laid back down. Another one came a little later and he told my mom he needed to go to the hospital. My mom jumped out of bed knowing something was wrong because he never wants to go to the doctors let alone emergency.

My mom took him to ER at around 11pm and she left at 1am. Anyways he was in the ER for most of the day on Thursday and they did several blood tests on him and a few other things. Finding his blood pressure was high and that his heart was working a little to hard they then admitted into OSMH to await angioplasty surgery. That is where the the basically stick a balloon on a wire and stick it in the artery to widen so that blood flow it easier. They were going to do this to one of his arteries so his heart would not have to work so hard. It is not a super invasive surgery so I was not overly worried.

They could not get him into New Market until Monday so he stayed in Orillia until then. They then transferred him SRHC where his operation would take place. After they operated on him my sister phoned me and told me that they found he is a little to blocked for this procedure to work and they have decided that he needs to have a by pass. This means they have to take a vein from either the arm or the leg and sew it onto the heart to bypass the blocked area. They will also use an artery from the chest wall as the main bypass and then the vein if they have to by pass more then one area.

It turns out though that he now has to have a double by pass. They will most likely use the thoracic artery (which is the best one cause it is closes to the heart) and then use a vein from his leg or arm. Which I am told is a good things because it means there as not as much damage to the heart as there could be and the success rater is high. The surgery from the time he enters the O.R. until the recovery room is about 3-4 hours. There is a lot of prep work and putting him to sleep. But once he is asleep the will open his chest and dissect the artery from his chest wall. Then they have to stop his heart and put him on a machine the works for the heart while it gets repaired. The by pass only take about an hour or so...the rest is just making sure there is no bleeding and then starting the heart back up. The he is taken to a cardiac care unit to recover. This is most likely to take place next Monday.

Thats the break down of what going on.