Out of My Control

I think we can all agree that beautiful spring morning of April 17, turned ugly real fast.

I arrived at University Community Hospital's, UCH, Er around 1300 hours. Apparently I was taken to the chest pain ER. But I don't remember being there. I do remember being on a stretcher and being pushed fast toward Pepin Heart Hospital, a cardiac wing of UCH.

I knew the route well. My wife spent 7 years in the development of this state of the art cardiac hospital. After which Brigit Shaw the CEO decided my wife CJ was no longer needed and asked her to retire. But this I'll go into later. Maybe I'll do a post on corporate restructuring

I remember being slid unto the cath table. And then I remember someone telling me we were going to surgery. Next thing I remember is waking up in ICU with something down my throat. I was being asked questions but I couldn't speak. Some one asked If my brother ,Randall, and my wife, Cathy, could come see me. I said no. I don't remember saying no, and I don't know why I said no. Maybe because I was laying there with not much on. But my whole family has been there with me on this roller coaster ride.

I was told that I would start breathing on my own and to start coughing so as to remove the breathing tube. This link will describe what happened during the surgery. http://www.healthcentral.com/cholesterol/videos-44022-47.html

Later I found out that I had a quadruple by pass. The first two stents inserted on Feb 25 by Dr. Cato at St. Jo's hospital had knocked off or became occluded or clogged or what ever you call it.

I am using a previous video to explain what happen to my stents.

If you will watch the video closely you will see where an artery branches off. We will call this the Left Anterior Descending or LAD. And the branch to the left we will call the Diagonal or DIAG. This is not exactly where the blockage was. My blockages were just below the junction of the 2 vessels. Stop video at this point.

Imagine if you will two stents placed at this junction of the DIAG from the LAD. The stents are touching and pressing in on each other. Probably not the best solution but hind sight is best. And I'm no doctor so what do I know. But it is at this junction where the stents become totally occluded.

Continue the video. You will notice that as the blood gets backed up. The heart turns black. This is the damage that is done to the heart. Causing heart failure. I mention heart failure before. HF does not mean the heart has stopped functioning. But that the heart is failing to pump at full potential.

My first heart attack did little damage to the heart. However this third event, apparently I've had cardiac events which sound better than attacks, did quite a bit of damage. Now it's taken 3 or 4 months for me to finally get the full story. I don't know if I wasn't told of the damage so as to protect me from the truth. Or that my doctors and surgeons just didn't know the full impact of the 3rd event.

My cardiologist scheduled an echo cardiogram to find the extent of the damage. This was done 3 months after the surgery. There was not much improvement to the heart damage done. He suggested I get an ICD, Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator. This would prevent sudden cardiac arrest or death. He called it life insurance.

In any event, no pun intended, my ride is not over. I'm still on the coaster.

Should I blame Dr. Coto, who is supposed to be one of the best cardiologists in Tampa. Or just forget about it. Some things are just out of a doctors controll. I'll choose the latter.