TOÑO LIVES through open heart surgery
- Melissa Herrera: Not Waiting for Friday
- June 16, 2024
- 1578
The past two weeks were not what we had planned. Summer felt near, and George had just started renovating a small shop he’d purchased in North Canton. But I took off two weeks of writing this column because George — if anything — never does anything small.
Last week he had quintuple open heart bypass surgery. Say that again: quintuple. I know I had to.
After his heart attack and four stent placements almost two years ago to the day, we knew he might need surgery in the future. But many folks do fine with just stents, never having an issue after. We knew he had more blockages but thought medication and exercise might do the trick. We’re all human; we all hope but didn’t know the extent of his coronary artery disease.
George arrived at his new shop to putter around, all his hopes and dreams piled up in his head like a layer cake. A PSA to people — pay attention to your bodies. He ignored dizziness when he climbed on ladders, and it seems this is his symptom of impending attack. He fell from the ladder, hit a scaffold and landed on the cement floor where he passed out. He woke up in a puddle of blood and called me.
In the ER we found he had a broken nose and a fairly superficial wound on his jaw that bled and bled because of the blood thinners he takes daily. It didn’t take long for them to connect the dizziness to the heart issues. They took him for a heart cath the next day and told him he would need to have open heart, that the disease had narrowed his arteries and along with the stent arteries narrowing, he had more blockages.
On the heart cath table, the same doctor who fixed him up two years ago told him, “Stents would be useless; you’re young — it’s time to fix this.”
We waited a grueling week in the hospital before they could do surgery. They had to wait for the blood thinner to wash out of his system. The night before surgery, he called me at midnight and was panicking, the anxiety wrapping its fingers around his heart and squeezing. He couldn’t do the surgery, he said. It’s too much.
I rushed back to the hospital after packing a bag and slept in his room. He calmed and fell asleep, and the next morning, the surgery process began and away he went. I kissed him goodbye as they wheeled him away, and my heart squeezed too.
He was gone for 11 hours, the surgeon expertly rerouting his heart with five new arteries, bypassing the broken ones. I was supported by family and friends, and they distracted me with laughter and love. And when finally I could see him again, motionless in that bed with a ventilator keeping him alive, I touched his swollen dear face and pictured all the things we have yet to do in our lives.
As I write this, he is still in the hospital with hopes of getting released in a few short days. They tell me he can attend our son’s wedding coming up June 23, that he’ll feel like a brand-new person even though he will still be healing. They said he can live out the rest of his life because of this surgery. But vigilance and a change of habits for both of us will be in order. I will do it right along with him.
Because Toño lives once again, given a new chance to reclaim what’s left of his life. He turns 57 years old on June 13, and we’re going to celebrate it hard — harder than ever before.
Melissa Herrera is a published author and opinion columnist. She is a curator of vintage mugs and all things spooky, and her book, “TOÑO LIVES,” can be found at www.tinyurl.com/Tonolives. For inquiries, to purchase her book or anything else on your mind, email her at junkbabe68@gmail.com or find her in the thrift aisles.