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Joe McMoneagle - the Stargate Chronicles

The operation turned out to be particularly scary for Scooter [his wife], because it was accompanied by complications. After cutting the wirewrap retainers and cracking my sternum about half an inch, the surgeon (Dr. Irving L. Kron, the same surgeon who did the original work on me in 1985) discovered that my older bypass grafts had adhered to the scar tissue along the inside of my chest wall. Had he just opened my chest, I probably would not have survived.

He spent hours carefully detaching the old grafts to gain entry to my chest for the second operation. Of course I was oblivious to this, because I was enjoying a walk in the out-of-body state along a peaceful brook in the Bavarian Alps at the time.

Because of my age, and the duration of the operation, it had a major impact on me. While I still returned home as quickly as I had from the first, it took a lot longer for me to regain sufficient strength to do what I considered a normal level of work. The heart problem was really beginning to frustrate me. I decided that I would have to work even harder to regain my strength and vowed that eventually I would put it all behind me.

In a sense, it caused me to drive myself even harder in many respects, much to Scooter's dismay. I think the second operation frightened her just as much as the first. I was very sensitive to the pain I was bringing to her, but there was little that I could do about it, except get through it. During this operation they used both the mammary arteries in the upper chest wall and a vein taken from my left lower arm area. Dr. Kron said they'd learned a lot since my first operation and this one would probably last a lot longer.

The difference has been truly amazing. I still have a major heart problem, but it has been a lot easier to deal with.