boltnut55

Hi. My father is almost 90 and two weeks ago was diagnosed w/CHF when he ended up in the ER w/breathing problems. Several days later, he was released (W/O proper meds, which we took care of the next day), but yesterday morning, he ended up in the ER again. This time, the drs. found out he had a small heart attack. Drs. did an angiogram today and found that all three arteries were damaged/clogged (not sure of term). When I asked how much, one dr. said all were 65-90% bad. They didn't do an angioplasty but would have the heart surgeon/team evaluate him over the weekend (he's in a teaching hospital).

Besides cataract/glaucoma and hearing problems, he does have high blood pressure ("normally" 170'ish) and high cholesterol (no idea of numbers). Other than that, he is able to live alone, cook, clean, and bathe... well, until this whole CHF episode, of course.

Is 90 too old to have bypass surgery? I guess I'm trying to figure out if it's automatically a bad idea or whether there should be consideration to his current quality of life, etc. My normal way of handling these situation is to tell him the positive and negative and say, "Dad, you need to decide!" When I explained the angiogram to him, I did tell him there's a chance that they can't do the angioplasty and he might have to have bypass surgery. He said he would agree to the bypass surgery too, but when the drs. told me about the three clogged arteries, one mentioned that the surgical team would still have to evaluate him to see if he's a candidate (as in just cuz dad's willing doesn't mean it'll get done).

If he doesn't get it done, they would do the angioplasty as a backup way and hope it'll take care of the problem. My dad has said that he doesn't need to live to 100. If he can get a few more good years, he'll be happy (always the optimist... not sure why he got me as a pessimistic child!).

Any comments? Answers? HELP!