Yesterday he was on the operating table for what was basically open-heart surgery.
Today he was back to his normal routine, with a few minor restrictions. The most constraining one is that he can't raise his left arm above his head for six weeks because it might dislodge the wires from the pacemaker that are embedded in his heart.
Yesterday his resting heart rate was 38 beats per minute - just barely enough to keep him conscious.
Today his resting hear rate is 66 bpm. He has color back in his face, and his hands and feet are now warm and flexible instead of cold and stiff.
He was cracking jokes with the nurses when we left. We stopped on the way home to get him a six-pack. He's already made an arrangement with a young (relatively speaking) lady back at the assisted living facility who also has a pacemaker.
They're going to compare scars...
But seriously, folks, think about it. Surgery to implant a tiny half-dollar sized device that regulates the heart - the living, beating organ that keeps us alive. A device that fires over once per second, and that has a battery life of 8 - 10 years. And the surgery involves opening up the patient's chest, exposing the heart, then screwing two wires into that heart (each wire looks like a miniature corkscrew), and closing the chest back up.
And the patient goes home the next day.
Almost as miraculous as the medical and technological advances that make this possible is a health care system that enables the techniques and devices to be created in the first place. Granted, there is room for improvement, but under the abomination known as obamacare a panel of unelected, appointed, nameless, faceless bureaucrats would perform some bizarre cost-benefit analysis and determine that there is no payback for performing such a procedure on my 94-year-old father. That would devastate me, my sister, and our extended families.
Not to mention a certain lady waiting for Dad back at the assisted living facility...
5 comments:
Life and Death decisions by a Central Committee?... Rediculus! In the land of the free lunch and the home of the Atlanta Braves? No... ah, yhea, I see what ya mean.
I vaguely recall hearing something about those kind'a people years ago. Must have been in Gernamy. No... maybe it was Korea... ah, what did we call Russia before it shrunk to be just Russia? Didn't they have a Central Committee too?
WOW CTT,
I'm sure everything will work out just fine for your dad.
I'm just turning 70 and have had some heart related problems for several years. I'm on 2 different heart drugs to lower blood pressure and counter an irregular heart beat.
My resting heart rate is in the high 40's and I tend to feel tired unless I keep moving. My Cardiologist has mentioned the possibility of a pacemaker down the road.
However, he didn't mention installing it the way you described your dads. He said they would make a small cut above my left nipple and thread the wires through the brachial artery near the collar bone and implant the device above my left nipple. He never mentioned opening up the chest cavity.
Congrats on the Old Man! Great news he is doing well.
Pascvaks - if you really want a WTF? moment about health care panels read this.
Toejam - you may be right. Dad's incision is halfway between his left nipple and his collarbone. It's about 3" long. When the cardiologist talked about touching the heart and inserting the wires I just assumed he cut all the way to the heart. But the endoscopy procedure you described sound like what actually happened.
Jeff - thanks
Tim-
I'm positive that we will 'improve' on the Brits with ObummerCare, no doubt we'll save the stamp and have two lawyers deliver the message. It takes a little imagination to find ways to spend every penny of our GDP. (Well, it did once;-)
PS: Best to you and your Dad, "Zum Voll".
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