Susie’s Dad is FINE
posted at 12:53 pm
on Jan. 20, 2012
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OK, here’s a story for you.
Once upon a time, several days ago, Susie went to Washington—not to filibuster congress, but to visit her dad before an operation.
This operations was a biggie, on the biggest organ in his body. No, not his skin, you literalist. His heart, he’s got a big heart, figuratively.
And in this case, actually, which was the problem. Now I’m not a doctor, and what I know about this operation Susie got from her mom who got it from a cardiacathist or whatever, so I might not have all the details right.
But apparently, in Phil, one of his thingies that sticks out of the heart, that the blood goes into and out of, it had a big bulge in it (embolysm) and this is a bad condition to be in. Lucikly, he got it detected by chance in September, before it popped (ruptured), but popping is often the way a person finds out they have such as a problem as he had. And that usually means it’s discovered post mortem. :(
Well, the doctors decided a good thing to do was to duct tape it up (wrap it in a stent during open heart surgery). So they scheduled him for an operation after Christmas. Which was three months wait, a long time to wait when you are told your heart is all busted.
So Susie was worried about this operation, which has a really good survival rate and Phil has a really good body that he’s been treating well, so things were looking positive, but really, you want your odds for an operation to be nothing less than fan-frickin-tastic. So it was a nervous-making time for everyone.
Before the surgery, all the children came back to Washington to be supportive and, you know, just be there… the way family does. This was a huge deal for Susie, who hasn’t been with her whole family together in several years. And the reunion was a big deal, and I know it made Phil’s heart swell—in the good way, not in the bad way.
And….... the surgery happened, and he made it thru. In fact, he was up and walking around even sooner than I was after my surgery but that’s because they left his knee alone. It’s not because I’m lazy and really like my couch.
But they also had him with NO heartbeat for quite a while on the table—deliberately. As part of the procedure, they stop the heart completely for, no fooling, 30 minutes or more. The body is kept very cool, and this is all normal, but I still think this is more amazing than jetpacks or even the iPhone—this is man conquering death and astounding me. Truly we live in an age of wonders that we take for granted, even as we marvel.
Susie is in Washington for the next week or two, being supportive and hanging out and it’s all going to be extremely good now, and of all the happy endings I’ve written, this is one of my favorites.
The End
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Why I’m Not Blogging These Days, Really
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It Happened: We Have to Move by April 1
