Doctors are wonderful people, surgeons are amazing...

...and Cardiologists are the BEST!

This morning my beloved Nana had a procedure to clean up an artery in her heart and put in a stint.  This was a long thought out decision and a painstaking choice.  Two weeks ago the doctor told her she had three options.  

1.  Ignore the issue.

2. Have angioplasty to clean out a completely blocked artery and hopefully repair the damage with a stint.  The side effects to this could be a heart attack on the operating table leading to...

3. Open heart surgery...NOT something anyone ever WANTS to have.

After many hours of discussion, tears and arguments amongst the siblings Nana decided to be proactive but only do what is necessary and pray that it works.  And it did!

Angioplasty is the technique of mechanically widening a narrowed or obstructed blood vessel; typically as a result of atherosclerosis. An empty and collapsed balloon on a guide wire, known as a balloon catheter, is passed into the narrowed locations and then inflated to a fixed size using water pressures some 75 to 500 times normal blood pressure (6 to 20 atmospheres). The balloon crushes the fatty deposits, so opening up the blood vessel to improved flow, and the balloon is then collapsed and withdrawn.

I planned on getting to the hospital early and normally with heart surgery I was early but Nana's surgeon/doctor was so amazing that he was done before any of us even thought he had started.  1 hour 36 mins, in and out, success!

I met her doctor a week before her surgery and he apologized to us for not being able to give us a definite answer on the procedure.  He didn't want to scare us but wanted us to have all the answers.  As he was talking I thought about the fact that only God knows when we are to leave this planet and only God can give the Doctors all the tools they need to help us along on our journey.

Today I'm thankful that my Nana is too stubborn to be taken from us right now and that God blessed her with a doctor who is talented beyond measure and a staff who are thoughtful and kind.  

So I will leave you with a picture of my sweet Nana...she is what I'm thankful for today!