The Rundown..

Dad has been complaining about chest pain for a couple weeks now (not to mention, he's become increasingly weaker than usual). Last week he went to instacare to get things checked out. They didn't find anything there, so they sent him to the ER. Nothing was found at the ER so he was sent to a cardiologist, a physical therapist, and a bunch of other specialists. He received a call back with an appointment for a angiogram that would take place Monday (yesterday).

An angiogram is pretty amazing (I marvel at modern medicine). Its an imaging technique used to visualize the inside of the blood vessels. They enter the artery at the groin and travel up to the heart. We were worried because this was the procedure to determine wether he needed angioplasty right at that moment (what we were expecting), just meds to clear little blockage (we hoped but doubted), or if he'd need bypass surgery.

We learned that his kidneys are working at 50% and will only continue to get worse. But even worse, he has 4-5 major arteries that are blocked 80-90%. He needs quadruple or quintuple bypass surgery immediately, but they are waiting until Monday so they can take a few preventative measures like pump him with meds that will help protect his kidneys.

The docs are nervous that his kidneys will fail, if not now, eventually. Obviously, any one of us would give ours.

The thing that the docs are shocked with is the fact that he has 4-5 major bloackages.. that is EXCRUCIATING. Even one can be excruciating. Our dad has been living with so much pain for so long that it didn't bother him as much. AND his diabetes has created so much nerve damage.

Our feelings: we are now praying hard that Dad will go through with the open-heart surgery. He is really scared (can you blame him?) so he is actually considering NOT having the surgery. If he doesn't have it, he could have a major heart-attack at any given moment that he most likely won't survive (the docs say). Dad is saying, "well, I could die in 2 weeks at home or die on Monday on the table."

So we hope you'll include our dad in your thoughts and prayers. We pray he'll make the right decision. We pray he'll be comforted and protected.