LET'S TALK ABOUT HEART SURGERY...

I had been on Sergio ever since he got his job here in SC to go get a physical. He pays for the insurance, he may as well use it...

About a month ago was his appointment at the neighborhood Family Practice in which they performed the normal chest inhales, turn head and cough, and took vials of blood for lab work...

They also threw in an EKG... ewww...jackpot...

The results which were (abnormal)led him to refer us to a Cardiologist, who scheduled a stress test to be done and then another one to follow...this one with some kind of electro stuff to light up the heart and see what's going on exactly...

To which was revealed, blockages... (bummer)

Shocking? not really...

ok... now what?...

Well then we go to the hospital... (yesterday) to get what is called Cardiac Cathertization and possible stents (Angioplasty)... Where supposedly they run a tube from the groin (where is that exactly?) up to the heart, feed some liquid shit in it that will show without a shadow of a doubt where the blockages are and then balloon them to expand the artery and put in this mesh looking thing to make the artery stay open)

We are freaking the hell out... but of course on we go...

So as I sit in the waiting area with all the other loved ones having some form of heart shit to be performed and within 20 minutes, the cardiologist is back, the procedure could not be done because the blockages are too severe...

Next option?

Open Heart surgery... Do what?

Needless to say... Sergio is Trippin!...

Hold up a minute, What are you talking about?... I just went to have a physical and now we are here?

How?

So they proceed to make Sergio feel comfortable by booting his ass out of Day surgery and admit him to a pre-op cardiac room just in case he decides to have the surgery...

Now through this... I'm cool... I watch... I listen... It has to be done... I'm acting like an adult...

Soon the Surgeon comes to visit... He was very patient with Serg's thousand questions, and though I was agitated at Sergio for asking everything in the book, I can't say as I blame the guy for wanting to know everything and anything...

So as we sit (Serg lays) in the room, nurses come and go through their shift, they take his vitals, they prepare for surgery as if he's already consented...

Quadruple Bypass they say... Best option available for longterm...

Sergio is still not signing the consent paperwork...

Yet everyone is still preparing for surgery...

Finally at 6am this morning, Sergio signs and we're off...

There was one point last night when we both said, "Let's just go home and think about this"

They put a shot in his ass to sedate him and he's off to pre-op to await the OR Team...

I shuffle in to wait with him... I'm still ok at this point...

But then...

Two guys come in behind the curtain... They start to shave him from head to toe...

I bust out crying... Hiding it of course from Sergio...

This is all too Surreal...

I mean come on, were we not just in the General doc's office less than a month ago with me sitting on the sidelines as the doctor preaches to Sergio about his smoking?

Now we are here with Sergio about to go through something too big for me to even comprehend...

OPEN HEART SURGERY... we watched the video... It was a bit scary...

The Real thing... REALLY FUCKING FRIGHTENING...

Yeah yeah... good for the longterm... most viable option...

After laying, sitting, crying, praying, making phone calls to inquiring family members and friends and co-workers in the cardiac waiting area for 7 hours, they finally call me for the last time to update me as they had done all day from the operating room.

"hi denise, he did good, the doctor just finished the 4th bypass and in about 30 minutes he will close" (close would be the breastbone they will have to wire which had to be cracked open in order to get to the heart) "and then we will get him situated in the CVICU" (where ever that is)"and then you can come back for a few minutes to see him"...

So they finally call the attendant who walks me back to this room with all of these small curtained off rooms and some very scary looking people as patients in them... My Sergio being the scariest to me...

He has all of these tubes coming out of him, all of this equipment hooked up to him, his eyes are taped shut, he's on a ventilator that is actually breathing for him... (Now wait just a damn minute, I must have missed that memo, weren't we just going to cut a little line, lift up the skin, shift around the breastbone and pec muscle to grab the heart and fix the hoses running to and from it?) I saw the video, I really did... I must have been in delusion city and thought this wouldn't apply to my Sergio...

I was wrong...

I went back to see him around 8pm after the nurse called to tell me he was stirring around...I had came home to check on the children (yes, Sara's home, haven't had time to write about her yet I've been in such a whirlwind with all of this.. Poor babygirl)and took a shower, made more phone calls to his Son and co-workers, and now I'm supposed to be asleep because it's going to be rough these next couple of days with trying to get him to walk and cough (to block possible onset of pneumonia) and I heard from his nurse that they had to remove the breathing tube not long after I had left the first time because he was thrashing all around... i knew he would hate that if he was conscious and had that in he would freak the hell out because one of Serg's worst fears is choking... anyway, they gave him some sort of medicine to boost his oxygen level supposedly to get the anesthesia to abate more rapidly so he could be coherent enough to quit being so difficult for the nurses. I know Sergio and what they don't know is God love him but he is demanding and not used to this... Then again... Who really would be?

As we laid near each other last night, me on a cot beside his hospital bed, he said, "I'm scared baby!"

I replied, "You have every right to be sweetie."

I was thinking, "Not as scared as I am!"

More later, I have to be at the hospital in five and a half hours...

God's Love and Peace...

Denise