Dr. Schiro's Report

Jim and I met today with Dr. Schiro. He is the cardiac surgeon who did Jim's bypass surgery. He is also the doctor that opened his chest on September 12 and found all of the infection. He said we have three options.

1. We can do nothing and the worst will happen. It will be slow and it will be painful.

2. We can open the chest cavity and remove a portion of the sternum and clean out the area between the sternum and the heart. This is a very strenuous surgery. There is no way to tell if the stiches will hold inside. He gives this option a 50 50 percentage.

3. We can get in a plastic surgeon and between Dr. Schiro and Dr. Van Winkle they will remove muscle from the pectorial muscle area and put it into the chest cavity and then sew it up. Infections do not heal without blood and this area is not getting a lot of blood. I did not know this but muscle is full of blood. Introducing blood to this area will pull the infection out. I don't know how but this is what he said. This option the doctor put at 90 percent success. It is not as hard on the body.

Jim and I have talked about this and we have decided on Option 3. Jim does not want to continue the status quo. He wants to be aggressive. He wants to live but he does not want to just lay their and let this infection take over. Jim is fully aware of his situation and the doctor explained all of these options to both of us. It is ultimately Jim's decision and he told Dr. Schiro he wants the surgery.

The two doctor's offices are talking and are trying to coordinate their schedules and hopefully the surgery will be at the beginning of next week. He will be transferred to Sarasota Memorial Hospital for the surgery. If the surgery is Monday, then the best case senerio is that he will be back at Healthsouth by the end of the week.

Dr. Schiro was very upbeat about this. He said to Jim, "Let's get this fixed so you and I can go to a Yankee spring training game in Tampa."

Yes I am scared. But this is the first time in a long time that I feel there might actually be some hope of Jim getting better. This chest infection is what is holding him back. Even Dr. Hume was excited about this procedure. He was totally against surgery on Monday. As we all believed, we thought our only option was the second one. Ok one more time. Big prayers are needed.