5. The Operation

I was wheeled to the OT waiting room at 8.30 am Saturday 18th October. A young lady anesthetist started inserting plastic needles on both my arms, and how they hurt! While busy at work, she kept receiving calls : Some people just have no patience, she said, but finally she left, and that was the last I saw of her.

My wife who was waiting outside had a rude call to come quickly to the OT reception. Her blood seemed to drain out as she hurried, wondering what could have happened. Well, the surgeon came over and announced : we’ll have to postpone my ops, as there is an urgent case. A 35 year old Chinese is almost dead from a heart attack. You are stable, and I hope you don’t mind waiting.

I was wheeled back to the ward, with tubes around me.

I had lots of visitors, family, friends, and colleagues. After the operation and discharge, I start to write this blog, and somehow or other, I simply could not recall all the people who visited me. Did my boss come? He did? Wooo … for the first time in my life, my short term memory seemed to fail me.

There was a change in anesthetist, this time a young male. He visited me the night before the operation. I could not recall what was discussed, but according to my wife, he explained the operation procedure, roughly as follows :

Procedure (Simplified)

• The patient is brought to the operating room and moved onto the operating table.




• The anesthetist places a variety of intravenous lines and injects an induction agent (usually propofol) to render the person unconscious.




• An endotracheal tube is inserted into the throat and secured by the anesthetist and mechanical ventilation is started.




• The chest is opened via a median sternotomy (bone saw) and the heart is examined by the surgeon.




• The bypass grafts are harvested - saphenous veins (from on the inside of the thigh to the leg,). When harvesting is done, the patient is given heparin to prevent the blood from clotting.




• I cannot remember whether it was an ‘on-pump’ or an ‘off-pump’ surgery, but the Heart Lung Machine was mentioned.




• One end of each graft is sewn onto the coronary arteries beyond the blockages and the other end is attached to the aorta.




• Protamine is given to reverse the effects of heparin.




• The sternum is wired together and the incisions are sutured closed.




• The person is moved to the intensive care unit (ICU) to recover.




• After awakening and stabilizing in the ICU (approximately 1 day), the person is transferred to the cardiac surgery ward until ready to go home (approximately 1 week).

After, giving the details, I remember him giving me a stack of documents to sign. No point reading, as there would be no operation if I do not agree to sign. You leave me no space for litigation, I commented, and his laugh seemed nervous.

A triple bypass operation, showing saphenous veins grafted from the aorta to an area after the blockages, thus supplying more blood and oxygen to the heart muscles.
My operation was scheduled for Monday, 20th October. A Sunday operation would be prohibitive cost-wise. I cannot remember the sequence of events that happened on that day. When I awoke, I was back in ICU with wires and drips around me. There was no case of seeing the light at the end of the tunnel … hehehe. My breathing was fast and shallow and I was not aware of much pain.