Tom CAVE #227

Letters to the Editor

From Vanessa CAVE in CMO #227

@ . . . . . I'm sorry for the delay in sending you Christmas cards in the past two years, much has happened, which caused me to not be able to correspond. My father (Tom) had four bypass surgeries one and a half years ago and his health had been poor. Also, he had a crystaline lens put in his left eye prior to the heart surgery. During the heart operation, Tom woke up while the doctors were stripping the veins out of his legs to be grafted and bypassed on the heart. He said it was horrible, but they him back under when he opened his eyes. He couldn't speak during the operation, because of the tubes and paralyzing drugs they gave him. Then, when Tom came home, he developed a liquid sack and calcium deposit on his right leg which I had to drain repeatedly with a syringe. Finally, his surgeon had to put him back in the hospital to remove it. Furthermore, Tom had more complications. He gained 52 pounds of water weight from the congestive heart failure in a matter of two weeks going from 140 lbs to 192 lbs. He had to go back into the hospital to drain it off in 7 to 10 days. After all of that, Tom developed trouble with his diabetes. His foot (left one) became discolored (his toes turning a purple-black), but I got him to a vascular specialist in a hurry so he would not lose his foot. With special treatment and quitting smoking, his foot is okey now. He got a hearing aide now, too.

(18 Dec 1999 postmarked)

Vanessa CAVE (CA, USA)