Open Heart Surgery

In order for me to get clearance for the revision surgery of the left breast, I needed to get cardiac clearance. My echo's they did in the hospital were ok but the cardiologist wanted me to have a stress test. So I opted for the nuclear stress test where they give you a radioactive solution in your vein and it makes your heart start to race just as if you were on the treadmill, but you really are just laying on the bed. It feels really weird! They saw something odd on that test and Dr. Avendano wanted me to have a heart catheterization which was scheduled for July 8th. July 3rd came and went without a hitch. Dr. Gill fixed my left breast with ease. July 8th came and went and the heart cath was performed. I was immediately admitted to Memorial Hermann The Woodlands to have a double heart bypass the following day because my heart cath showed a blockage in my widow maker or left main. This is very serious because you can just keel over and die with no notice. So I was a trooper and agreed to the bypass, as scary as that sounded. July 9th, I had my surgery and was scheduled to stay in the hospital for a week. I woke up with the intubation tube still in place and coughing. I tried to take the tube out but the nurses were quicker than me and stopped me. Said I had to keep it in for another 2 hours. It was so traumatic my mom couldn't even be in the room to watch me fight that damn tube. Once out of me, I calmed down and cooperated. I stayed in the ICU overnight and moved to my new room the following day. I ended up doing so incredibly well that I was released on Sunday, 3 days earlier than planned. I got my chest tube drains out prior to leaving, along with my external jugular central line IV. My mom changed her flight a total of 4 times in order to stay with me and help my family recover from all my surgeries. 3 surgeries in a month! OUCH!

Heart surgeon, Dr. Stephen Maniscalco 


Cardiologist, Dr. Amilcar Avendano