Mortality Looms

A few months ago I decided I needed to spend more time attending to family stuff, mainly spending more time with my parents, especially my dad. We've been fishing a few times and a few times when I've had days off I just drove up and visited with them for a couple hours. I popped up there last Monday and surprised them. They said they were going to call me that evening to tell me my dad was going to have another heart procedure. My dad had an EKG a couple weeks ago and his heart doctor said it didn't look good. He wants to do an angiogram. My dad had his first triple bypass when he was 51 (about 30 years ago). He had his second triple bypass about 4 years ago. The doctor told him at that time there was one artery that was inoperable and basically it was a ticking bomb. This doctor told him, basically no matter what they find they won't do another bypass at his age. One of the problems is the last time he had an angiogram the procedure itself set off a heart attack on the table and they were forced to "crack him open" and do the bypass.

My mom called me yesterday while my dad was in the yard working on the garden. She said he's really worried. That's "Mom-speak". When she says "he's worried" it means she's really scared.

This Thursday I'll be driving to Northern Arizona to pick up my parents to bring them down to Phoenix for a heart procedure on my dad on Friday morning. If you all remember, offer up a short prayer for us this week for Jesse and Nell (and us kids and grandkids). Thanks.