Sunday April 19, 2009

Sunday - One day to go...

Tomorrow is the day. Last Friday, we found out that Lynn has to report to the hospital at 5:30 AM. The operation is scheduled to start at 7:30AM. She will be first in the queue, so we don't expect any big delays like last time. We still have no idea on how long the operation will take, but the background information says 3 to 6 hours. Gary and Sharon came by today around 1PM. They are going to be spending the night; Susan Mathew should be coming by soon as well, and she'll also spend the night. Lynn and I will head out to the hospital, then the rest of the crew will show up later.

I have done some research into the operation. It looks as if the surgeon will "harvest" the arteries they need from her chest area, the right and left thoracic arteries. One will be connected directly into the left main. The other will be connected from the aorta to a point just past the blockage. Hope fully, all will go well, and the operation will take closer to 3 hours than 6.

One part of the operation that I never considered... the surgical team will stop Lynn's heart for a period of time. Usually 60 minutes to 90 minutes, they use a combination of drugs and colling to still the heart so that they can work on it. Of course, all I can think of is, what if they cannot start it again? Sure, she will be on heart/lung machine, but that is completely a temporary measure. If the heart does not resume beating, that's it. That does not happen very often, but the fact that this has to happen really serves to illustrate the seriousness of the situation. Hard to believe that an operation this extensive and complicated has such a high survival rate. Never-the-less, the way people used to decide if a person was alive or dead was if they had a pulse...that is, was their heart beating or not? So, by the standards of 100 years ago, Lynn will be dead for at least an hour by the time this is done. Goes to show how far we have come, I guess, that this is now as easily accepted as getting your tonsils removed.

For dinner, we all had chicken divan, plus salad and watermelon. Lynn made an oatmeal cake for dessert. John and Todd Allen called to wish Lynn luck, and Rhonda dropped by - she is taking care of picking up the kids tomorrow. I will get them from her house when I come home tomorrow evening. With the uncertainty about the length of the operation, plus the unknown time period that has to pass from the time she gets done to when she can see visitors, it will be a long day.