A Thanksgiving Detour/Bypass

We had originally planned to visit Jeff's mom in West Texas for Thanksgiving, but our plans were abruptly changed!

The Monday before Thanksgiving I received an email from my mother explaining that my father had called 911 because of some chest discomfort, and he was being taken to the hospital in Springfield. Five years ago the same thing happened and my father had to have three stents placed to take care of three major blockages. He's been fine since then, so this just seemed to be a repeat of five years ago.

Or so we thought.

Tuesday the doctors performed an angiogram and discovered FIVE major blockages (the stents were still fine)—two blockages at 80% and three at more than 90%. These blockages were not stentable, so they scheduled him for bypass surgery. Thankfully, my father has had absolutely no heart damage from any of these blockages—God is so good!

So, Jeff and I were literally walking out the door on Tuesday afternoon to leave for his mom's house when the phone rang. It was my dad saying that they were going to do bypass on Wednesday. That caused a sudden change of plans, so we headed up to Missouri to be with him.

The surgeon performed the bypass Wednesday afternoon at noon—and it was over by 5 PM. After the surgery, the doctor explained that he had done—not five—but a total of SIX bypasses on my dad! WOW! My poor dad had to have the saphenous vein removed from BOTH of his legs to provide enough grafts for the bypass.

But since dad, at 73, is relatively young for bypass surgery (according to his ICU nurse), and he did NOT have a heart attack, he recovered from the surgery very well. He stayed in the hospital for only another four days after the surgery and was discharged on Sunday.

So we spent Thanksgiving Day at the hospital, eating hospital cafeteria food. But that wasn't really that bad at all. The food was actually VERY good, and we didn't have to cook or clean up. And the best part about it was my dad was still alive! That's what I call a VERY good Thanksgiving.