A lot of you know of the troubles I had late last year but for those who don't, on Thanksgiving 2024 I suffered a pretty major heart attack which led to quadruple bypass surgery with some horrible complications happening afterwards; including a sternal dehiscence, punctured, collapsed and finally herniated right lung as well as several surgeries to correct it all.

Despite all that, by the amazing grace of God, things were healing and improving quite well. I’d even joined a gym (speaking of miracles) and was slowly working to build myself back.

Unfortunately, that progress has hit a wall and regressed a bit. To begin with, the damage to my sternum, it turns out, is permanent. There was so much damage that the only way to repair it has left it so that the top half of my sternum is in one piece. Solid as it should be. The bottom half is 2 separate and independent pieces and completely separate from the top half.

They move independently as do the ribs attached to their respective sternal portions - often caused by the most innocuous movements - sometimes even just breathing. When those pieces move, the ribs move - and they let me know each time that ribs aren't supposed to move.

There’s a lot more to this part of it but the bottom line is I have severely diminished upper body strength, stability and mobility coupled with pieces of the sternum constantly clunking back and forth, sometimes audibly, usually painfully.

I’ve asked the surgeons and cardiologists about this - apparently there’s one procedure to address something like this but it involves completely cracking open my chest again & the improvements are marginal, at best. I’m not down with hzving a third open heart procedure over the course of a year if it’s not completely necessary soooo…this isn’t gonna improve much - if any.

Unfortunately there's more...

Thursday 9/11 I underwent a heart catheterization. It was to be mostly an exploratory procedure meant to find and explain some symptoms that have crept up over the last several months. When the Doctor sent the whatever-it-is-they-use through my femoral artery and up into my heart area she found a few areas of concern:

First - most of the arteries, including one of the bypass grafts, on the right side of my heart, have disintegrated - gone. Soooo that’s one of four bypasses totally gone.

Interestingly, through a process called collateral circulation, some blood is beginning to be sent to my right coronary artery & the Dr who performed this procedure tells me it’s really not at all uncommon, that right now those vessels are pretty small but over time they will grow and deliver more blood to that side of the heart.

On the left side of my heart, another one of the bypass grafts has collapsed, the term that the Provider Report uses is 90-99% stenosis, so the Dr placed a stent to hopefully keep that artery open. Also on the left, she found yet another artery with a significant blockage. I was really groggy post-procedure so I’m pretty unclear on the how/what/why of this but because it’s tucked in behind or beneath my heart, it wasn’t seen or at least, wasn't bypassed during my bypass surgery so she also put a stent in this artery.

There’s gonna be some recovery time involved but hopefully this procedure will effectively address the problem of my heart not getting enough oxygen. Unfortunately it’s enough of a major procedure that I need to complete the Cardiac Rehab program again before I’m deemed ‘healed’.

This will begin in 4-6 weeks and then run for 12 weeks so it looks like I’m gonna be down until at least January. Not completely down like I was earlier this year, but I'm gonna have to take it somewhat easy for yet some time.

I’m hoping this procedure FINALLY puts an end to all the heart issues so I can get on with living my life.

The kindness and generosity of so many of you has really helped to sustain me through this hard year - I wish I could accurately express the level of gratitude I feel to everyone for all the help I've gotten. I honestly thought I was FINALLY coming out the other side - I had just recently gotten to the point where I was able to get out and play a few gigs here and there & it felt great.

I'm still going to try and do this but with these setbacks, I won't be able to play nearly as often as I'd grown accustomed to so my ability and capacity to earn a living is, once again, greatly diminished.

Not to mention the mounting medical bills. I remarked to the admitting nurse yesterday how this is the second year in a row I've reached the (not insignificant) 'out of pocket' maximum on my health insurance policy - she gently reminded me that's not something to which someone should aspire.

Any help you can contribute is greatly appreciated! Thank you for taking the time and effort to read this and to help, God Bless!