My Dad's Heart Cath

   My dad began to experience a tightness in his chest and a tingling in his left arm when he was walking on the treadmill.  He made an appointment to see his doctor.  At this visit, the doctor listened to his heart and referred him to a cardiologist to have a stress test performed the next day.

    A stress test is a method for getting the heart up to a certain stress level where the arteries dialate to let more blood through.  If the artieries are blocked, they will not dialate properly and it will show up on the EKG.  First, the doctor will take the patient's blood pressure and heart rate while at rest.  Then they attache sticky elctrodes to the hip, shoulder, and chest.  These will monitor the heart.  The patient gets on a treadmill and every three minutes they increase the pace and the incline.  The test is over when the patient's heart rate gets to a target rate (85% max based on the patient's age) or there is discomfort in their chest or other signs of a problem.  My dad did this test and one of his arteries was 99% blocked.  He was sent straight to the hospital.  They had a room waiting for him. 

   When he checked in to his room, he was already scheduled for a heart cath at 3:30 that very afternoon.  They injected a dye into him so that the vessels would show up better on the film.  A tube with a camera was inserted around the groin area to see the clog.  Then they used a balloon to stretch the blood vessel.  Next they put in a stent (an expanding piece of metal) in the artery. This will hold the artery open for the blood to flow through.  They closed up the incision site with a StarClose, which is a vascular closure sytem.

   My dad had to have three hours of rest.  He had to lay flat on his back and coundm't move his right leg.  After three more hours he could sit up and get out of bed.  He was released from the hospital the next day, Saturday.  Sunday, we went to church together and on Monday he went back to work with a "no heavy lifting" restriction.  Tuesday he was permitted to resume his normal activities.  They put him on a blood thinnner medication so the blood wouldn't get stuck on the stent.  They asked him to slightly modify his diet.   My dad believes this blockage might have been caused by his cholesterol medicine (Vytorin). 

   When he called me on Friday at 12:00 PM, after his stress test, he told me he had to have the heart cath.  I was shocked.  I prayed.  My grandparents took me to the hospital to be with my dad.  At 3:00 PM, he left to go have the heart cath.  They started it at 3:30.  It took just under an hour. 

   My dad is doing great!  I'm glad it is all over and that there was no damage to his heart and he didn't have a heart attack.