Sunday, December 30, 2007

The day before we left to go to Birmingham, my stepmom called to tell me that they had decided against doing the quadruple bypass on my dad - apparently there was a doctor at the hospital who wanted to perform a relatively new procedure called a high-risk stent (and apparently, it was a new enough procedure that there's not even much info about it on Google) - but that they were going to hold off on anything until we got there.

A day and a half later, we were standing next to my dad's hospital bed while the rather grim-faced doctor informed us of the 75% failure rate of the procedure. "3 out of 10 people who have this operation walk out of here... and the rest don't*" He told us that with all of my dad's health problems (including 50 years of smoking), it was an EXTREMELY risky procedure.

He asked if we had any questions, then asked my dad what he wanted. My dad said that he wanted to take the gamble and go ahead with the surgery.

They let us talk to him for about 10 minutes (during which time, my dad basically said his goodbyes and we all cried), then walked us to the other waiting room (our second room in 2 days).

Several excruciating hours later, after we'd seen happy doctors and nurses prance out and joyfully give good news to hopeful families, our grim-faced doctor peeked into the waiting room and called for us. "Please come back here with me," he said, ushering us into a tiny consulting room.

He sat down at the computer terminal in the room and started typing on the keyboard - I was numb, thinking that my life could be changing within seconds and he was... checking his email? He clicks around for a bit and finally finds the folder he's looking for - he clicks it open and shows us a couple of x-ray videos of my dad's blocked arteries - the one in his leg, he can't do anything - the ones in his heart were blocked between 80 and 90% - meaning that his heart was laboring because the blood just wasn't getting through.

He shows us another video of the blocked veins in the heart, then he shows us a video of a couple of thread-thin veins turning into big fat juicy veins in his (still) pulsing heart.

"This procedure was no piece of cake," he said. "But he came through it."

None of us were listening as he told us the changes my dad is going to have to make and how he wasn't out of the woods yet, we were too busy crying and thanking the doctor.

A couple of hours later, my husband, my kid**, and I got to go see him first - what a huge change - he wasn't the pale, frail old man we'd seen laboring for breath hours before - he was my dad - pink-cheeked, bright-eyed and pleasantly surprised to be alive***.

This has felt like the longest week of my entire life, such a roller coaster of emotions, but my dad is still here. And that doctor, as cocky and dramatic as he is, is officially the coolest person on the planet and on our Christmas card list for eternity.



* no one wanted to point out that 3 out of 10 would actually be 70% - he's a doctor, not a math teacher

** they don't allow kids under 12 in to see patients, but the nurses were so excited to see my dad back that they let us bend several rules

*** he said that he'd been expecting the lights to dim some time in the middle of the operation, but he said that they stayed blindingly bright and after the operation, the doctor bent down next to his head and said "congratulations, young man, you made it!"



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I'm not going to mention any names, but a certain comment-spamming attention-whore has advised me that:

1) She didn't even read my post before spamming it
and
2) If I'd politely asked for an apology, she "might" have apologized
and
3) If I'm going to write personal things on MY OWN PERSONAL BLOG, I should expect spam

yeah, I feel much better knowing that she's not insensitive, she's just a complete asshole with no regard for anyone else and zero class.
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