bonjour family

About a week ago I received a call from my dad. He was in hospital with heart troubles due to a murmur he has had all of his life. Of course the first reaction is *oh my gosh what’s happened? Are you okay?* and all that. Turns out his heart is suffering from Atrial Fibrillation - meaning that instead of parts of the heart pumping, they vibrate, or fibrillate. This can be very dangerous as the atrium doesn’t always empty of blood and this blood can clot, be pumped to the brain and cause aneurysms. (?)The fibrillation causes the heart to be ineffective in pumping blood and so the heart must beat faster and faster to pump the same ammount of blood. My father’s heartrate was in the 150-160 range!

What’s going to happen?

The Doctors have said that he is going to need a Valve Replacement Operation (i.e. Open heart surgery!!). They will replace the *faulty* one with either an artificial one (here I come 50 billion dollar man!) or an animal grown heart (just bizarre).

When?

We don’t know yet! This upcoming thursday dad is having a tiny camera inserted into one of his arteries to look into & around his heart (endoscopy). Once that is done, he will know more and the doctors will be able to schedule a time for the surgery.

What about the Bonjours? What are they going to do?

Both Tracie and I feel really strongly that we are to be there. Even though right now Dad is feeling fine, as if nothing is going on with him, this surgery is no small thing. When I was first praying about it, I felt God challenge me to take it seriously, and to be aware of the severity of the situation. You see, many years ago, my mother died of Cancer. I didn’t take it seriously enough. I tried to and did pray often, but I don’t think I really ever engaged in the process, really fighting for her and really standing by her. I don’t want to make that same mistake again with dad. So I go to stand by him, and to support him and take care of him as much as i can.

Of course Tracie and I are super excited to go and visit dad, and see Cyprus, and to get back to Europe again, but that isn’t why we are going. It is a sacrifice for us to go, it will cost over $3000 for the three of us to be there. (I think Olivier is excited to see dad too - at least he would be if he understood what we were talking about - he may even get to swim in the Med)

Please be praying for him and for his protection during this time. If you want to give towards the cost of the surgery, contact me.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 3rd, 2006 at 10:23 pm and is filed under friends. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.