Next available date suddenly turns out to be TOMORROW

We saw the cardiac surgeon today, who talked to us about bypass procedures and checked out Richard's veins and arteries with the kind of obsessive interest you might expect from a hungry vampire. Then he suggested scheduling the procedure for July 1 (2 days later than the last estimate we'd gotten for "next available date.") When we looked unhappy with that he said casually, "Or I could do it tomorrow if you'd rather." Uh... tomorrow? By this time it was almost 5pm on today, and tomorrow seemed awfully sudden. But much better than waiting another week with the symptoms getting worse each day. So sure, tomorrow it is. That is, Friday, June 24, first thing in the morning. We'll be getting up at 4:30am to make it to the hospital by 5:30, so I'll make this brief. There are plenty of things to worry about, but at least everybody who has looked at the angiogram results had nothing but nice things to say about Richard's heart ("Nice pulmonary action!" and the like). So I guess the odds are good.

Who is this guy??

Turns out anesthesiologists are not big fans of facial hair. When we met ours yesterday the first thing he said was, "How attached are you to that beard?" So last night the beard came off. I had never seen my husband without a beard. It is kind of surreal to hear his voice coming from a stranger's face.

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Operation was a success

And yes, the patient lived. I haven't seen him yet, but have talked to the surgeon. There were no surprises, which is generally desirable where surgery is concerned. As planned, he bypassed 2 arteries.

And he was able to get all the raw materials he needed without going into the leg, which is apparently the best scenario. One length of artery came from the left forearm, the other from a non-essential artery inside the chest cavity (who knew there were spare parts just lying around in there?).

I have been hanging around for about 40 minutes waiting for somebody to come get me and lead me to my husband. I think it's time to go out and find him. This is an excellent hospital and the procedure seems to have gone perfectly smoothly, but from the spectator point of view the scene transitions need some work.

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