Paracentesis

My Dad was told just that when he had one of his carotid arteries 100% occluded. Course the doctor had been watching it for years telling him it wasn't ready to fix, etc. Then one year it was, "Oops! It's too far gone." The best specialist in the area told my Dad (I was there), "Go home and live everyday like it's your last, because it may well be." My cousin at the time was on the staff of the Texas Medical Center in Houston. He arranged for Dad to confer with a doctor at Hermann Memorial. My Dad drove to Houston from Indiana. The doctor called him a walking dead man. Said people with his condition never come in on their own, they are always on a stretcher. At the time very few people were doing the type of surgery he did. He could not fix the 100% occluded artery, but he cleaned out the other that was almost 90% closed. That was . . . hmmmm. . . about 20 years ago. My Dad is still alive and doing well for a 91 year old.

My cousin always told me, "Be thankful that first doctor wouldn't do the surgery. You don't want someone doing it who isn't comfortable with his own abilities." What he did do wrong was let us think there was no possibility of helping Dad.

Dale