Third stent’s a charm…

Well as many of you know, I had my third stent put in Tuesday and all went well and I feel great and EXTREMELY fortunate.  The only problem that I had was that I was way too cognitive of what was going on during the procedure.  Lying on an operating table ( BTW I walked into the Operating Room…that was freaky in itself!) and feeling the prick (JAM!) of the catheter rising through your leg and up into your chest is something I hope to never experience again.  I guess there has to be some pain involved for all of my poor choices. Yes I was given an IV, but it’s purpose is to only put you in a haze so that they can talk to you while they are “working” on you.  Feedback, unfortunately  is a part of the procedure.

Thankfully, this procedure was only about forty minutes long.  In that period they put another stent, my third one overall and in the right coronary artery which had 70% blockage.  I spent the night in the hospital as expected and came home Tuesday afternoon.  The Hospital staff was excellent and very caring

Post operation:

My experiences…..I am still sore from what I lovingly call the “garden hose sized plastic tubing” that was shoved up my femoral artery.  They beat the crap out of you to get that dang thing up there and thus I have a large amount of bruising.  So except for a slight limp and the expected groin pain I feel wonderful.  I really mean wonderful!!

Lessons learned:

Life is wonderful, live for each day, count your blessings….you’ve heard them all, but there is a whole lot of truth in those snazzy little sayings.  I know that I’ve been given a second chance or a warning that I needed to clean it up.  I’m not a very religious person, but perhaps I should look into it.  My fate has been changed.

Just yesterday afternoon I got a call from a colleague I worked with during my days in San Antonio.  Another colleague that we worked with had died Thursday morning.  Seems that he had a heart attack on the way to work, crashed his auto and died.  I believe Scott was 44.  Scott didn’t have a second chance like I’ve received.  Scott didn’t get a warning like I did. not that I am aware of at least.  Of all the people that I know, Scott deserved one.  Classic case of a really good guy, stopped short in his life.

So, since I did get a break I need to make the most of this chance that I’ve been given.  And you know what else….you do too.

Feel free to leave comments or send me an e.mail.

charlie [dot] magruder [at] gmail [dot] com