Hi everyone,

I am writing to let you know what is going on with Rodney (James's Dad). On Thursday he had a massive heart attack. Luckily he was in his Doctor's office and was rushed to Memorial Herman Baptist Hospital in Beaumont. He had a couple of stints and a balloon put in right away to stabilize him. He then somewhat stabilized for the moment, they moved him to ICU. His arteries were 90 to 100% blockage, hence the whole heart attack issue. His cardiologist called in the Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeon Dr. Michael Oszczakiewicz (Dr. Oz). He determined Bypass was indeed needed within 24 hours. they scheduled it for Thursday evening. Well as it got later into the night Dr Oz's previous surgery lingered on. So they rescheduled Rodney first thing in the morning. Hoping also that his Stats would rise a bit.

Friday morning we got to the hospital about 6am. Rodney was ok and was nervous, as to be expected. He kept asking James "When you had your surgery were you nervous?" "Did you sleep the night before?" "Did your stomach kinda turn?" and so on. James reassured him that it was ok to be nervous, just don't give up. At 7:15am they took him to surgery.

12:25pm Dr Oz came out and said everything went well. Rodney recieved 4 units of blood at first because he was very anemic and his pressure was so low, Then he had 4 bypasses done. Dr Oz said is Rodney was a little younger he would have done 8 or 9. Oz then went back to finish up. Around 2:30pm Pat (James's mom) was allowed to go back and see him for a moment. James and I saw him around 4:30pm.

So far Rodney is doing very good. Today they removed his Ventilator and he is breathing on his own. He is hurting, which is to be expected, but I think he will be just fine.

Rodney should be in ICU for a few more days, then he will be transferred to a regular room. If you would like to visit him you have to going visiting hours and if you didn't know his name it is James Rodney Cox. Hopefully this 74year old man will out live us all now.

Shaw