Successful Surgery - Before & After

Dr. Kenwood and Jan in cardiac ICU after surgery.

Well the surgery is over, Jan has 2 stints in the Left Anterior Descending (LAD) of the heart and he is doing well. He has a product in his artery now called Xience V, an Everolimus Eluting Coronary Stent System. These are medicated stents to help keep the body from sealing them off. He will be on Plavex for a year - Dr. Kenwood calls it a super aspirin. 

For the first few hours Jan had some pain and discomfort with his heart that he was not use to which he rated at a pain level of 2. The nurse explained to us that when the vein and heart are not use to the blood flow it can hurt at first until they adjust to the flow.

Smiling through the pain.

By 5:30pm, when Jan had reached the time the doctor had given permission for him to move his legs and get out of bed - the pain had subsided. Here is what you've been waiting for, the Before and After pictures given to us by the doc.

BEFORE
See the arrows (near center of the photo) pointing to the
two blockages in the one artery, one is 90% blocked,
the other was 75%.

AFTER
See the arrows pointing to that nice, wide artery that
looks nothing like the one above - no blockages.

Jan is a great patient. He is cooperative, funny, nice, complementary and talkative. (Yeah, even under stress he is sweet.) He had a great team behind him today. The nurses and other workers brag how great the cardiologist Dr. Kenwood is. The male nurse in charge of taking Jan to surgery and bringing him back to ICU told me before surgery that Dr. Kenwood was so good that Jan would most likely be out in one hour, even if he had a stint. And he called it correctly, two stints and the procedure in one hour. This man is skilled and talented.
I am excited for the support that we will be getting from Dr. Kenwood and the staff at his office. He told us that he is a cardiologist first and surgeon second, he never wants to see Jan on his operating table again. He will give us all the knowledge and support we will need to hopefully keep this from happening again. 

After 5:30pm in recovery, on his way to feeling good.
One question he asked, when is that race I'm signed up for?
Join Jan at the SoJo 5K on 15 Oct 2011.