Critical Open Heart Surgery for Jennifer

Sunday evening, I started experiencing chest pain/heaviness that was very persistent and would not ease up at all. Monday I called my cardiology docs at Lutheran because this just felt very similar to roughly a year ago when I needed another heart cath procedure and had to have more stents placed. Today (Wednesday 10/23) they took me to the cath lab and within not even 10 minutes of starting the procedure, the doctor stopped and told me that I had 2 new and very severe blockages and one of them was in what he called the “widow maker.” Needless to say, I was very upset, and by the time I had got back to my room, the dr had talked to Rick and he was very quickly on his way to get to me at the hospital! We talked to the doctors in person and he gave us the news that I am needing a CABG procedure done. This is done with open heart surgery and taking vessels from other places in your body and re routing everything in your heart with new vessels. It is a very, very invasive and difficult surgery. I am currently in the hospital and doesn’t sound like I’ll be going home until after I get surgery and am recovered well enough to go home. This is going to take me out of work for months (again…after missing months of work for my cardiac arrest). And may require Rick to take some time to be with me but he had to use so much vacation time earlier in the year with his thumb surgery because Workmans comp wouldn’t take care of that so he has literally no vacation days left. If you feel compelled to donate, we would appreciate it immensely. Being off work for not only extended length of time is hard, but doing a second one and the same year is really hard! We also would appreciate all the prayers and thoughts and good vibes you would send to not only myself, but Rick and the kids as this is going to be a hard journey for all of us. Thank you so much! I will do my best to keep updates posted on here as we go over the next few days/weeks.