[NotAJerry]

My Dad, who is 71, has a defibrillator/pacemaker combo and has for the last 8 years or so. The first attempt at getting things right took 5 attempts over 2 years and ended with him doing just fine once they found a unit that worked well for him. The current unit just started beeping and he's now doing the prep visits to see if any changes need to be made before scheduling surgery for a replacement. It probably won't be too huge of a deal but any time they do a surgery like this they do make us sign the no fault waiver, so it's a reminder that there's always a chance that he doesn't make it.

[Sly Fox]

Praying in Papua New Guinea

[jcmanson]

Praying for you and your family.

My wife's great-grandmother (95 years old) just had a total pacemaker replacement. Her pacemaker was running at 100% - meaning without it - no heartbeat. She did just fine. I'm sure your dad will do the same.

[jimflamesfan]

praying

[NotAJerry]

Life got crazy busy over the last month, but I wanted to pop in and give an update here.

The way the local hospital handles things, I think in part to the massive number of patients they get in the DC area, is to have several of the people coming in for these fairly unique surgeries show up at 6:30am and then just go down the list. The last time my Dad had his replacement surgery, they didn't even take him back to pre-op until 9:30pm. With surgery scheduled for yesterday, we had assigned different people a series of shifts to keep him company (it's a real blessing that both of my sisters, 4 adult nieces/nephews, and a few adult cousins are all within about 2 hours of each other). Of course, God has the best sense of humor, so being prepared meant that he was called back to pre-op just after 8:30am, was out of surgery by 10, stuck around for the 1 hour observation they require, and was home by noon. Everything went as well as it possibly can and he's already irritated that he has to miss the next week or so of work because of the pain medication (he drives a large Peterbuilt parts delivery truck at age 71 and is showing no signs of slowing down).

Thanks for the prayers. As routine as something like this is these days, it can be easy to take it for granted and forget to bathe it in prayer. The old man is still kicking and we're going to go watch the Nats tomorrow afternoon in hopes that they sweep those filthy Mets.

[Sly Fox]

Thanks for the update!