Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 5:02 AM
Subject: RE: Nancy 

...I had to take Nancy to the emergency room at the hospital last Friday afternoon.  She ended up having a quadruple by-pass yesterday afternoon.  The surgery went very well.  They did not have to use the heart-lung machine on her during the surgery which I thought was amazing as her heart kept on beating on its own.  The great thing is that they didn’t have to restart her heart.  The Lord is really good! 

All the test have indicated that she didn’t have a heart attack, but she did have significant blockage in two of her coronary arteries (between 60 & 90%.)   She’s in the ICU of the Cardiac Surgery Unit right now.  I saw her last night about 1 ½ hours after her surgery, but she was still out.  Visiting hours start at 10 this morning and I’ll see her then.  The nurse said they had to give her some blood last night (which isn’t unusual), and that she’s a bit nauseous.  Other than that, she’s doing well.

Sent: Wednesday, September 19, 2007 4:35 PM

I didn’t get home until very late on Monday and just crashed.   The test revealed that two of her arteries were blocked between 60 & 90%.   Because she had been given Plavix, they wanted to wait until Thursday or Friday before doing a triple by-pass.   They said that if she experienced any chest pains that they would do the surgery early and give her something to counteract the Plavix.

On Tuesday she started experiencing chest pains again.  They decided to try a balloon catheter to ease the work of her heart and to try to keep with the Thursday/Friday surgery.  Later in the day (about 1:00) they changed their minds and scheduled the surgery for Tuesday at 4:00.

She had a quadruple by-pass because the mammary artery they used was very small and they wanted more blood flow (so a triple turned into a quadruple.)  The surgery lasted until about 7:30 and I was able to see her around 9:00.  She was still asleep when I saw her and they expected to move her to her room on Wednesday afternoon.

On my way to see her this  morning they called me to tell me that she was being moved to her room and that she was doing very well.  She’s been sleeping most of the time I’ve been with her.  She’s in room 404, bed 4 at St. Joseph Medical Center.  The phone # is 410-472-2462.  If you want to call her, tomorrow would probably be better.  

I just got home and will be doing a few things around the house before I go back to see her.

Sent: Thursday, September 20, 2007 6:53 AM
Subject: Nancy

Just an update on Nancy.  She went to her room yesterday morning from the ICU.  She’s mostly sleeping now and hasn’t been in much pain…just discomfort.  I do expect that today will probably be a difficult one for her.  I’ve been told that the second day after surgery is usually when the pain hits.   I’ll let you know more later.

Sent: Friday, September 21, 2007 8:21 AM
To everyone... Recap of events.

Last Friday Nancy called me at work around 1:30 and said she was having chest pain and trouble breathing.  She had just gotten back from shopping and was carrying the groceries up the back steps when it happened.  I came home and took her to the emergency room at Franklin Square Hospital.  They ran an EKG and blood enzyme tests.  The enzyme tests did not indicate a heart attack, but the EKG showed some things that were not quite regular.  So, they admitted her to the hospital.

On Saturday they did a stress test and that produced the same shortness of breath and pain.  They indicated that they would need to transport her to St. Joseph Medical Center on Monday to do a heart catheterization to see what was happening.

She was transported to St Joseph's on Monday and the test revealed that two of her arteries were blocked between 60 & 90%.   Because she had been given Plavix, they wanted to wait until Thursday or Friday before doing a triple by-pass.   They said that if she experienced any chest pains that they would do the surgery early and give her something to counteract the Plavix.

 On Tuesday she started experiencing chest pains again.  They decided to try a balloon catheter to ease the work of her heart and to try to keep with the Thursday/Friday surgery.  Later in the day (about 1:00) they changed their minds and scheduled the surgery for Tuesday at 4:00. 

She had a quadruple by-pass because the mammary artery they used was very small and they wanted more blood flow (so a triple turned into a quadruple.)  The surgery lasted until about 7:30 and I was able to see her around 9:00.  She was still asleep when I saw her and they expected to move her to her room on Wednesday afternoon, but she did so well that they moved her Wednesday morning. 

She has made great progress so far and they expect that she may be released as soon as Saturday.  She's in room 404, bed 4 at St. Joseph Medical Center.  The phone # is 410-427-2462.  

The rest of the family (myself included) are doing well.  The Lord has been providing His peace. Carrie, Nancy's daughter, came in yesterday and will be staying until Saturday.    I'll let you know more as we find out and I will certainly give Nancy your love. 

Oh, one other note---there has been NO heart damage.

Just want to clarify... The way that they remove the fluid is not by surgery.  They insert a needle through the back into the area where the fluid is.  Then they attach a tube to the needle and to a bottle that acts as a vacuum to drain the fluid.  What happened is that the people that did the ultra sound put a mark on Nancy to indicate where the needle should go. 

LATER: 1 Nov-3 Nov 2007 returned to the hospital with difficulty breathing and pain in the ribs.  More test were done at this time as follows:

When the doctor examined the results of the ultra sound, he decided not to drain the fluid at this time.  He is waiting to see if it will be resolved on its own.  When she had the fluid drained before there was over 2000 cc’s on her right lung and 200 cc’s on her left lung.. 

This time there was 240 cc’s on her right lung and 350 cc’s on her left lung.   We figure he thought that the risk of draining the fluid (collapsed lung, infection, puncturing the heart, etc. ) were greater than the benefits of draining it.
She’s got a Dr. visit on Tuesday with the lung doctors.  We’ll let you know how it goes.