And Then...........The Sky Fell In

.......or so it seemed.
Late night January 19th. would be the outset to two months of very stressful, troublesome times for George when he suffered an Aortic Dissection. Over the next weeks we would ride the roller coaster of life shrouded in the health care system and oh the things we discovered!

All manner of circumstances dictated our choices and direction, from knowing, not knowing, being told, not being told, thinking, guessing, hoping, wishing, wanting, needing; from frustration, humor, sadness, anger; and the questions, oh the endless questions seeming never to be answered. It was an interval of strife for both of us, especially George; I cannot comprehend how he managed to maintain his calm acceptance of the entire two month ordeal.

As I try to recount George's experience, our struggles and our fights, I so wish I had been keeping a diary of the whole episode from start to finish, but once more I am shown how extremely sharp hind sight is.

On admission (January 19th) to Surrey Memorial Hospital doctors told George he was lucky; his dissection went downward not up, and would not require surgery as would a dissection upward (just some healing time). Well, that was the first fallacy; by the 22nd. another scan revealed the dissection had continued down and was threatening to compromise blood flow to vital organs. A request for transfer to Royal Columbian was made by the attending specialist. To the credit of this doctor, when there was still no bed available at Royal Columbian by that evening, he used his influence to get George into Vancouver General Hospital; transfer took place on the 23rd. when he was taken to emergency and seen by leading Cardiovascular surgeons who performed emergency surgery that same evening. An aortic stent was placed and by-pass done to reroute blood flow blocked by the placement of the stent. It would seem the problem was discovered early enough, corrected and now he could recover..........                                                           this saga to be continued