…and I feel completely helpless….

I was getting ready for bed last night, and as is my wont I checked the email:

This afternoon, at 3:15, Dad said “Take me to the emergency room”. He’d had two attacks (one Tuesday night at a quarter to 11, one at 12:30 just before lunch time today) that we thought were abdominal.

Well, after hours and hours in an e.r. room, we found out he had 100% blockage in a major artery! [Cardiologist] started the angiogram at 10 p.m., a nurse came out at 10:35 and told us ([friends] were with me) about the blockage, and they started inserting a stent.

At 11:05, the doctor showed me “before and after” photos. The artery basically didn’t show up on photo 1, looks fine on photo 2. He has some OTHER blockage, but the doctor said we’ll just watch him and see when (if?) another stent is needed.

Anyway — 24 hours after the first pain (quarter to 11 last night), the surgery was almost over! Today’s medical technology truly IS wondrous.
He’s overnighting in CCU. Visiting hours begin at 9 in the morning, and I’m hoping he can come home shortly after that.

Mom

So, it’s about 2 AM and I find this out. By email. I admit to a moment of panic, then realized that if they weren’t excited about it I shouldn’t be, either.

When asked why they didn’t call during the event, they said ‘we thought you might be at work and didn’t want you worrying about him’, which is nice but wrong. Dad’s doing fine, has no idea which artery was stented, how the ischemia diagnosis was made, if there was any damage, etc. It’s truly a situation where if you don’t know the questions to ask you can’t ask them.

It’s very hard for me to not ‘take over’, then I remember all the family members who do that in my ED, and decide it’s not really necessary, or helpful. There will be plenty of time for that, later.

Oh, and thank God for stents.

Update 7-14: Home, safe.