Bill's Operation

Bill's View

After about a week I was scheduled for my operation.  Tina had had hers and was already recovering quickly, albeit in a different hospital.  I must say, in honesty, that I searched my conscience and asked God if there was any reason why I was not ready to meet Him if anything went wrong.  I came to the conclusion that I knew that Jesus Christ had gone before me to prepare a place for me; but unlike Paul, I was not yet ready to say that I would rather go there just yet.  Call it a lack of faith if you like, but I could not escape the thought that our two daughters, the elder of whom was due to arrive at any time to take over from her sister, would clearly be very upset – but the worst was the feeling that I might not be there to take care of Tina throughout her long programme of treatment for her cancer.

The surgeons explained that they had to cut me down the middle; cut through the muscles which are centred in front of my chest; cut my sternum in half; open up my rib cage and get access to my heart.  This was scheduled for six hours but, in fact, took about eight.  They told me later (I didn’t know much about it at the time and they didn’t wake me up to ask!) that they had had to stop my heart and replace it with an external pump.  I’m not sure why – but it made the whole procedure more hairy!  However, the very good news was that the heart attacks had not caused any damage to my heart muscles – apparently the danger is that muscles start to overheat and burn out when there is no blood (with its precious oxygen).  However, in my case the heart had never been deprived of blood – it had been pumping away but the blood had nowhere to go.  Praise God!