Today was the most gruelling day of my life. The emotional rollercoaster is beyond explaining, those of you who have been through this know what I mean.
Daddy went back for surgery at 12:15 and every hour they came out to update us on how things were going and what they were doing. During the second report, the Nurse who came out to update us told us that they had found extensive damage on the lower portion of Daddy's heart and the surgeon would also be doing a lazer operation after the bypasses were complete to help fix the bottom area of the heart. She told us to expect an additional hour of surgery.
At 4:45 the surgeon came out and said they had completed the bypasses and everything looked good. He said that during the surgery, Daddy had several heart attacks and they thought it best to not do the lazer portion of the surgery. He didn't want to take any chances and felt Daddy couldn't handle the additional surgery at this time. He told us to wait one hour in the waiting room and then we could go to Cardiac ICU to see him.
We waited an hour, went to ICU and I picked up the telephone you have to use to have the nurses let you in. I identified myself and told them we were there to see Daddy. She tells me he's not there yet, he's still in surgery. I explained that couldn't be right, the surgeon had come out to talk to us and told us to come see him in an hour.
The nurse then tells me that they had to take my dad back to surgery but she didn't have any details on why. We waited another agonizing hour and a half waiting to hear what was going on.
My Daddy's heart rate was dropping drastically low and the rythm was off kilter. They had to open him back up and insert a pacemaker to get his heart rythm stablized again.
So far, things are looking great. He's stable, and when I went in to see him at 10pm he was already off the ventilator, sitting up slightly or elevated in the bed and eating ice chips. :) :)
He's very hoarse, but he did talk to us and it was the BEST feeling in the world to see him alert and concious.
Hopefully he'll be out of ICU on Wednesday!
