F-I-L-M

Ok, so this is NOT a film review, but rather an updater on the F-I-L ... M (father in law)!

As you may have read, on Monday he went in for, what he told us, a small* procedure. However this was not the case, far from it actually!

Let me tell you a bit about its history. His heart has been beating an irregular rhythm for some time now leaving him tired and breathless. Also, extremities (nose fingertips etc) blue. After a procedure some months ago to try and 'shock' it back into rhythm, it returns back to his irregular rhythm a few days afterwards.

A return to the GP and Cardiologist and he was booked in to have an 'experimental' procedure. 'L's' favourite brother took him to hospital and after waving him off into surgery at 7.30am (told by nurse it will be about 90 min so he doubled it and came up with 3 hours to be safe) left for Westfield for some breakfast. Returned well into the afternoon (he did call throughout the day remember) and we arrived at the hospital at 6pm to find that he was still in surgery. 6.30pm came and we went to the ward to find he had just returned and was in Acute Coronary Care, wired up and heavily sedated. He still had the little pads they put on when they give the 'paddles' like in ER, Grey Anatomy, All Saints and just about any other medical show where there is a heart attack! He was very groggy and not making much sense apart from saying he was in pain.

Over night, his pain had escalated and although we thought he was due to come home yesterday, this was no longer the case and he was required for more tests. The procedure is this:

• They need to get the heart into a normal rhythm, so they shock it into this.
• They then had to identify which muscle on the heart was diseased. They will burn it off shortly.
• They then stop the heart and burn the affected area of the heart muscle.
• They then shock the heart to start it beating again, and this is where it all went pear shaped.

When they tried to restart the heart, it would not, at first, re-start so they had to increase the amount of charge. They eventually got it going (thank the lord) but left him in severe pain requiring increased sedation and medication.

We had a visit yesterday, L called me saying the M-I-L was quite distressed, so I left work to pick her up and go to the hospital. When we arrived, he seemed a lot better than the previous night, although still in pain. After a couple of hours, re-positioning and some lunch, he became a LOT better. He is under strict instructions from the doctors/nurse's, that there is to be no lifting of anything over 3kg, so the two grandchildren who have a tendancy to launch themselves at you, are out of bounds!!!

* After talking to the doctors, I do not think that this would be classed as a 'small' procedure, do you?