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It's been a stressful three weeks. My father called the doctor because he had stabbing pains on one side of his chest. The doctor called the ambulance. It turns out the stabbing pains were caused by shingles. But they did find a slightly irregular heartbeat, so he had to go to hospital to get it checked out.
They did find some enzymes in his blood which indicated his heart had cramped during the last 48 hours, so he had to stay. A couple of days later they did a cardiac catheterization where they found several partial blockages. After sending all the data to the nearby university hospital it was decided he had to get another catheterization at the university hospital. During the procedure the doctors decided that the blockage weren't serious enough to place stents immediately, but that my father might have to get a bypass operation.
A couple of days later that was confirmed, but he still had shingles. Last week there was a spot open for the operation but the dermatologist had to sign off on it and he was too slow. So we had to wait again for the next open spot. On Monday he was again transported to the university hospital and yesterday he was operated on.
It's a long procedure, after almost six hours they called my sister (first contact) that they placed three bypasses and everything went well. Until 9.30pm, when the surgeon called again, that my father was bleeding alongside the drains they placed (so not through them) and he had to be operated on again to see what was happening. They would contact my sister again after the operation. So we waited, and waited. After three hours my sister called. She thought it was taking too long so she called the hospital, it took a while for her to find the right person and it turns out an operation wasn't needed. They had realized he got blood thinners and it's normal to bleed like that. They changed his medication and everything was fine then. So we were stressed out for nothing for three very long hours.
After he gets off the ICU my father will be transported back to the first hospital, where he'll recover for a while longer before he gets released. And after he's healed for six weeks his heart rehab program starts.
It's been a stressful couple of weeks. I've been doing the store on my own, taking care of all the household chores and helping my mother where needed. Plus I visited my father 3-4 times a week. When he gets home I'll have to take care of him, until he gets slowly back to normal. My sister's been a great help with being the contact person for the hospital, but once my father's home I expect most things will be up to me (I don't have a driver's license so she has to take him to any appointments).
I've shortened the hours the store's open, we now open an hour later and close an hour earlier. Partially due to visiting hours at the cardiac ward, but also to give me time to do everything that needs to be done and still have a couple of hours to myself most nights.
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