Update on my dad...

For background, my mid 70's parents drove from ATL to Michigan on Thursday to attend my neice's high school graduation. Friday morning, my dad wasn't feeling well and he kept feeling worse. After convincing himself that it wasn't just indigestion, he went to a local hospital ER. While there, he started developing intense pain in his chest. The ER docs hooked him up to an EKG and ran an enzyme test to see if he had a heart attack. They came back clean. But the pain was worsening. The doc administered some morphine, which apparently did nothing. They hooked him back up to the EKG and monitored him for a bit. While monitoring him, he had a heart attack.

The docs rushed him into surgery where he needed 3 stents to open up an artery that was 99% blocked.

He was moved out of ICU into a regular bed today and expects to be discharged tomorrow. He has to wear a defibrillator vest for the next 3 months, while he is assessed for futher treatments. My dad describes the vest as a "bra with metal pop-tarts all the way around his chest". I had a chance to talk to him today and he says that he feels better than he has in many years, other than the pop tart bra.

The doctor told him that the only real reason he was able to survive was that it happened while he was in the hospital. Apparently this sort of heart attack is not one that people commonly survive otherwise.

I am immensely grateful to the doctors, nurses, scientists, janitors, clerical staff, and so on, that gave me and my family the incredible gift of more time with my dad.