I received an emal from Val, Richards's wife, this morning and he's in an Ottawa hospital awaiting open heart surgery. I'll include the letter he sent for all to read.
Richard came to help me last spring and has been here every year for the past 3 or 4. Even though it's a 10 hour car drive in the middle of winter he still made the effort. Friends like this hard to find and mean a lot to me. Let's all wish him well.
As of this afternoon the phone was not working but I think it will be hooked up tonight.
Hi All
I’m sending a general email to all those concerned, as I don’t have internet
access at the moment, Erica has brought me in her laptop and will send this
out for me.
I’m presently at the Ottawa Heart Institute, resting and waiting for bypass
surgery. For those who don’t know I have 3 blockages in my coronary
arteries, which made themselves evident near the middle of Nov. and
gradually escalated to an obvious heart problem just after new years, though
I have not actually suffered a heart attack or any muscle damage, which is
the good news. My condition is stable and I’m not currently in any pain.
The help and care here is amazing, the staff all go the extra mile to make
it easier to cope with and accept the state that I’m in and to know there
isn’t any other place to be with a heart problem. Since my situation is
generally good, I have to be patient and wait for surgery, when the surgery
team feels that it’s my turn. They assess their priorities daily and
naturally, more urgent cases go sooner. The expectation is that patients are
usually in surgery within 7 to 10 days and then 3 to 5 days in recovery, but
a cancellation could see me attended to sooner, since I’m in otherwise good
health and ready to go. For now I have to rest, stay healthy and bide my
time, catch up on some reading and watch some movies ;-)
I want to thank everyone for all the good wishes. It is a great comfort to
have friends reach out to me and my family. We have so much to be thankful
for. Val is staying at Erica’s much of the time, which is just down the
street, and her days here with me. I’m expecting to be moved to a different
floor tomorrow, so won’t give the phone number for this room, but a call to
the main desk would get you connected. 6137985555
Dan Caron's
SL Barn
benzbarn@ebtech.net
slbarn.mbz.org
1 877 661 6061
