56yo WM with h/o HTN and HLD presents with episodic chest pain x 1 week consistent with stable angina….
That’s a bit of the medical-speak of what’s been going on with my dad. Here’s the real story, in real people-speak:
Last weekend, my dad first mentioned to me that he was getting a little short of breath with exertion. He first noticed it after the fish fry last Friday when he was helping my mom move things around in church (she heads up the Arts & Environment committee). Then, the next night when they went to an IRT (Indiana Repertory Theater) performance downtown, it struck him that he was a little winded after walking a few blocks in the cold weather. When he told me about these two instances last Sunday, I told him that he needed to go to the doctor the next day to get it checked out. He and my mom went to the urgent care Monday night (our family doc was double and triple booked throughout the day), and after seeing something on the EKG, the doctor sent them to the ER. Thankfully, everything turned out okay in the ER (EKG, cardiac markers, and chest xray all negative), and the ER doc arranged for him to go for a stress test on Thursday. When they went in for that on Thursday, it was decided that the stress test wasn’t going to show them a lot that they didn’t already know, so the cardiologist set my dad up for a heart catheterization on Friday. Well, Friday arrived, and the heart cath wasn’t as smooth as any of us had hoped. Of the 4 major vessels in the heart, 2 have 100% blockages, 1 has an 80% blockage, and 1 has a 50% blockage. If you think about it, that’s not a whole lot of extra space for blood to get to the heart muscle to let it pump. Amazingly enough, the cardiologist could see that there had been no damage to the heart muscle, and the pain that my dad had felt was stable angina. Another amazing find during the cath was that my dad’s heart actually grew a collateral artery to ensure that the area of his heart that was blocked from the other arteries would still get the oxygen it needed to function. Talk about a miracle!
After the cath was done, my parents and our wonderful family friend, Tammy, who supported my parents throughout this tough day, talked with the cardiologists and surgeons about how to proceed and what the next step would be. They initially discussed placing stents, but with the positioning and the severity of the blockages, it was felt that stents wouldn’t offer a longterm solution to the problem. Stents can become thrombosed, or clotted off, and then you’re right back where you started. After a lot of talking (and a lot of note-taking on Tammy’s part), it was decided to go ahead with coronary artery bypass grafting, or CABG, for short. My parents were at the hospital for most of the afternoon, discussing the surgery, the outcomes, and the road to recovery. My dad also had some labwork done (all good!), and they met all the various people of the team that will help him in the post-op period. He is having his surgery on Tuesday at the St. Vincent Heart Hospital (part of the same hospital system where I work), and his surgeon is one of the surgeons that does heart transplants too. I guess if I want anyone operating on my dad’s heart, I want it to be somebody who can actually take one person’s heart, put it into another person’s body, and make it beat again. I am confident that my dad’s heart will be in wonderful hands (literally!), and he will get through this with flying colors. My dad will likely be in the hospital until next weekend, then will come home to a long 4-6 weeks of recovery. He’ll probably be out of work for 1-2months, and he can’t drive for 4-6 weeks. I think these two things will be the hardest for my dad because he is so dedicated and involved in his work, and he’s a man that loves to drive. I know he will be looking longingly at his Porsche in the garage and waiting for the day he can take it for a spin. Our friend Tammy said it well though, “you’re doing this so you can have an extra 15 years to drive that car.” So true, so true.
I will try my best to post frequently throughout the week. I start my second month of ICU on Monday, and I start on the night shift, so that means I’ll be working from 5:45pm to 6:45am. This schedule will make it really tough because my dad will be at the Heart Hospital and not at the main hospital (about 10min apart from each other), so I will be stopping there before and after work each day. I have to sleep somewhere between 7am and 4pm too, so I might be a little more sleep-deprived than normal. Please forgive me if I make typos or my sentences don’t make sense.
Till next time…
No comments:
Post a Comment