Yes Warbler, my thoughts and prayers are with you.
I haven’t given an update for a bit. My father had to wait 12 days before the doctors were finally able to perform his bypass surgery. His initial heart attack is often described as the “Widow Maker” because it so thoroughly kills the majority of those it afflicts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anterior_interventricular_branch_of_left_coronary_artery#Widowmaker
They did not immediately perform the surgery because it was believed that his neurological damage would be so severe due to the poor circulation of his heart immediately following the heart attack. Their protocol was to first induce hypothermia for 24 hours to preserve his mind as much as possible and see if there was anyone upstairs worth saving.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Targeted_temperature_management#Cardiac_arrest
My dad woke up on his own after maybe 12 hours of hypothermia, unexpectedly, and his mental capacity seemed to remarkably intact, much to the amazement of the physicians caring for him.
After several complications including pneumonia, excessive internal bleeding (he was given heparin, a blood thinner to prevent further blockage, but was difficult to control as he would continue to bleed far longer than expected even after heparin was stopped), and other things, they finally went ahead with the surgery on Monday. There they discovered that he had a hole in his hear in the left ventricle, the chamber of the heart responsible for circulation to the entire body. Of all that my father had survived, this was the most amazing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myocardial_rupture#Prognosis
Mortality for this incident is 100%! Nobody survives this! My father had been living with this for several days. As the tissue died from the lack of circulation to a portion of his heart, the hole developed a few days after his heart attack. It was undetected. He should have bled to death. But miraculously, the pericardium, the lining outside the heart, somehow had adhered directly to the cardiac muscle, when normally there is a space between the two. As it held tightly there while the hole developed, the blood was able to clot over the hole, thus preventing him from bleeding to death. The cardiac surgeon performed a double bypass and stitched up that hole.
Now my dad is not yet out of the woods. While he continues to slowly improve, there is always the chance that something will go south. I just have to say here that while I know there are many who do not believe in God or the power of prayer, and while you all can point to the (now slightly less than 100%) remaining people who have had the same complication and died, I personally attribute all the miraculous perservation of my father’s life to a God who loves my dad. I am so grateful to God for whatever reason he felt my dad still had some time left on this earth.
I respect all your views, and no one need comment on my spiritual interpretation, as I do not wish to stir up a religious debate. But where we all can agree, it is truly astounding that my father’s heart is still beating, that he can understand what I said to him today over the phone, that he continues to recover in spite of complications, and I am so grateful that my this man yet lives. Thank you all for your well wishes, thoughts, and to those to whom it applies, your prayers. I also am grateful to those with whom I’ve had tiffs in the past who put aside any harsh feelings you may have for me to wish my dad and family your kind thoughts. Thank you all. I’ll likely never meet any of you, but even across the Interwebs, I am grateful for your kindness.