Thursday 3rd May 2012

Murray had the heart MRI at around 12.30pm today. We waited for the specialist to come and see us with the results at about 5.30pm. His results show scarring of the heart so he will definitely be getting an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD). The operation was scheduled for 9am tomorrow (Friday) however due to a horrible accident his operation will be postponed to Monday. A Canberra hospital staff member (part of the cardiac team) was killed at around 5pm as she crossed the road outside the hospital. Another colleague was injured but is in a stable condition. Apparently a car ran a red light and knocked the pedestrians over. Dr Tan was obviously upset when he was telling us about his staff member who had worked at the hospital for 15 years and who has 4 children. He said that his team would be too distraught to operate tomorrow (which is totally understandable). So Murray sits and waits a bit longer. He will have been in hospital for 2 weeks from midnight Friday. The operation is fairly straight forward, however once inserted they will actually test the defibrilator by stopping his heart (scary but obviously necessary). He should be allowed home the next day and then needs about a week to recuperate. He won't be able to fully lift his arms above his head for about 6 weeks (so no golf for a while!), this is to allow the wires to embed properly in the heart muscle. I'll update early next week to let you know how the operation goes.