Member Profiles
CHARLIE FARRIS
In late April 1997, I kneeled over with chest pain and was
rushed to the hospital where I subsequently received a quadruple bypass. The first surgery took 7 1/2
hours and there were apparent complications (uneventful surgery takes about four hours). The team returned me to the
CCU recovery room but did not offload me from the gurney. After laying there approximately twenty
minutes, it was discovered I was bleeding severely and I was immediately rushed back to the
OR.
It was discovered that one of the bypasses had completely broken and a second surgery lasting another five hours repaired the damaged bypass
vein. I was transfused almost ten pints of blood. Forty hours later I came to.
I probably set a record for duration of surgery (twelve and half hours) and on the heart-lung
machine.
Recovery went quite well and I left the hospital after nine days and began building my
strengtt again, including starting rehab at the hospital.
Then a couple of months later I fainted (from medication) and broke my left leg in two places.
So I spent months in a wheelchair because I couldn't use crutches. A long story short, in December I completed rehab.
I became involved in Mended Hearts (which see their website) visitng heart surgery patients and
have developed my own website (which I will install a link to this website.) And, I am probably one of
a very few if not the only lay person that has seen a bypass surgery first hand and written about
it. Details can be found on my website at http://www.cardiaction.org.
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