Coronary Arterial Bypass Graft (CABG) – A stitch in time?

MY dad’s years of “good health” came crashing down 2 weeks back when an ECG report showed an inferior myocardial infarction or a mild heart attack – this was old..On Apr 30 he had a dizzy spell when I was in Pune – as it turns out, it actually was an attack – “silent” attack if you may, coz we just realised that diabetics get silent attacks of all things and that too painless – a pretty superb way of dying if you ask me, but that;s a choice i would have made for myself for dad, corrective measures had to be taken – and hence he was rushed to Saifee – angiography was done to assess the blockades in his heart – you would be shocked to know that he had 5 of them – barring 1 that was 50%, rest all were 90-100% with extremely calcified arteries – docs and experts suggested he is at a major risk of a fatal MI (heart attack) and he had already had one – a Coronary Artery Bypass Graft surgery was suggested – initially i was and am still against it however, some immediate external intervention by Vinay uncle and my sis-in-law Nisha’s oh-so-expert advice were major compounding factors in deciding on going ahead with such an invasive surgery and that too within just a week of his angiography report, we were back in the hospital with me freaking out completely – having researched on all things heart – a CAD, CABG, EV, LAD, LVEF…blah blah….had compounded my fears about opening up my father’s heart and messing with it even if it meant for good, till date I and no one else can be sure on how much life we have enhanced for him but as wise elders would suggest, now that it’s done successfully, we must take it in the right stride and say a stitch in time saves nine, in this case, quite literally as arteries from his legs were pulled out and grafted into his heart — he is on post operative recovery stage and I am just happy that he lived through such an invasive intervention with his heart. A lot of people benefited immensely from his operation – while i still have my doubts about dad being one of them, the ones that certainly did was Dr. Sripal Doshi (the thoracic and cardiovascular surgeon) who operated on dad and his anesthetic Dr Aslam among others — the cost of this surgery came upto a cool 3 lac 40 thousand and again, thanks to my job at this point and the medical benefits me and my family enjoys that most of it got covered under the corporate policy and more. But now, I just wish I never have to use it again!