CABG
Eight days after my son-in-law passed away, November 18, 2014, I went into the hospital for testing. I hadn't been feeling well and thought it might have been stress related. The nurse said I was in full blown AFib and a heart cath was scheduled for the next day. It was discovered that one of the stents in my RCA was 80% occluded and there was a 50% blockage just under it. With four stents already in my RCA, a surgeon was called in and on November 24, 2014, I had a single CABG on my RCA.
It was not an easy surgery. My surgeon said what should have taken around 2 1/2 - 3 hours to complete, took nearly 10 hours. The artery he wanted to use, in my left arm, was too small. He tried the mammary artery but it peeled apart when he tried using it. When he tried to use the one in my left leg, it collapsed and was no good. The surgeon finally found one in my right leg, but it was too short and he had to piece it together in order to do the bypass. He was not happy about the work he did. He told me that he'd done over 3000 of these surgeries and has never had this happen before. He said my veins and arteries are the worse he'd ever seen and that it had to be genetic.
After the surgery, I went into AFib again. It took several hours to pull me out of it. While in AFib, my oxygen level dropped critically low and they had to increase the flow of oxygen from 3L to 10L over three days. I also had, what appeared to be, seizures. My doctor had no clue what caused them, but felt it may have been the anesthesia. Just as we thought I was out of the woods, my blood pressure spiked then went to a critically low reading and my blood sugar went high. As they were trying to bring my blood pressure back up, I was given insulin shots (ended up 2 a day for six days). It was not an easy journey. I should have been in the hospital just 5 days but it ended up 12.
My doctor said he wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not. Not only because of all the problems that arose during and after surgery, but because I lost so much blood that they weren't sure what to expect. I'm home now, and doing fairly good. The one thing that surprised everyone was, I had no pain at all. Never needed pain medication and was up and about, doing what they thought I wouldn't be able to do, without needing help. I told them I was "the come back kid. You won't keep me down long and don't tell me what I can't do because I'll prove you wrong. ;) ".
It was not an easy surgery. My surgeon said what should have taken around 2 1/2 - 3 hours to complete, took nearly 10 hours. The artery he wanted to use, in my left arm, was too small. He tried the mammary artery but it peeled apart when he tried using it. When he tried to use the one in my left leg, it collapsed and was no good. The surgeon finally found one in my right leg, but it was too short and he had to piece it together in order to do the bypass. He was not happy about the work he did. He told me that he'd done over 3000 of these surgeries and has never had this happen before. He said my veins and arteries are the worse he'd ever seen and that it had to be genetic.
After the surgery, I went into AFib again. It took several hours to pull me out of it. While in AFib, my oxygen level dropped critically low and they had to increase the flow of oxygen from 3L to 10L over three days. I also had, what appeared to be, seizures. My doctor had no clue what caused them, but felt it may have been the anesthesia. Just as we thought I was out of the woods, my blood pressure spiked then went to a critically low reading and my blood sugar went high. As they were trying to bring my blood pressure back up, I was given insulin shots (ended up 2 a day for six days). It was not an easy journey. I should have been in the hospital just 5 days but it ended up 12.
My doctor said he wasn't sure if I was going to make it or not. Not only because of all the problems that arose during and after surgery, but because I lost so much blood that they weren't sure what to expect. I'm home now, and doing fairly good. The one thing that surprised everyone was, I had no pain at all. Never needed pain medication and was up and about, doing what they thought I wouldn't be able to do, without needing help. I told them I was "the come back kid. You won't keep me down long and don't tell me what I can't do because I'll prove you wrong. ;) ".
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