Dad

And the other big thing that happened lately is that Dad decided now would be a good time to have heart surgery. Okay, it's not quite as dramatic as it sounds, but it was still pretty serious. On Tuesday August 10th dad started having chest pains but because he's a Smith (we tend to dislike doctors) he ignored the issue until Thursday. Upon chatting with his doctor over the phone the doctor indicated that based on his symptoms it might be a good idea to check out the local hospital. Dad had a treadmill stress test on Friday and according to his doctor, he "failed miserably" Not just failed the stress test, but "failed miserably"

That afternoon he had an angiogram to see what was going on and the surgeon found an artery (the left descending maybe) that was almost completely blocked and "hanging on by a thread." However, the doctor wasn't as comfortable doing the surgery to correct said artery at the hospital we were at. So they loaded dad up into the ambulance and transferred him to the nationally recognized heart hospital in town and continued the angiogram and later surgery. He had only one stent put in but that opened up three other major arteries and will help his heart tremendously.

He was discharted late Saturday afternoon with very few restrictions, but he's now on a ton of medications. Mom and I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what each one was for and how often he should be taking it, etc. And he has to go to cardiac rehab for about six weeks now, but otherwise, he's doing great.

The Good Lord was watching over us and put dad where he needed to be exactly when he needed to be there. The family, of course, wishes he wouldn't wait so long to address medical issues, but we're not going to change him at this point in his life. We were very fortunate and really appreciate all the cards and phone calls and facebook posts expressing care and concern for dad.

Even he admitted that he's heard many families at the time of their loved one's funeral say, "he was having indicators of heart problems, but we ignored them" and we are all thankful that dad decided not to ignore them and get up to the hospital when he did. We love you very much, dad !!