Open Heart Surgery

The surgical incision into the chest angles slightly upward, avoiding pleura, pericardium, major arteries and veins.  The sternum is revealed, then cut vertically down the middle.  Beneath beats the heart, sturdy but small; the size of a fist. 

A machine takes over the job of heart and lungs during the surgery so that the heart does not pump and the chest does not expand and contract for breathing.  The patient’s body is preternaturally still as the heart-lung machine takes over the work of oxygenating the blood and circulating it back into the body via a new route: the saphenous vein in the leg.  In this way, tissues and organs receive the vital oxygen without which they cannot survive.  The heart and lungs lie quiescent, and the surgeon works at his delicate task able to see clearly in a still and bloodless field.

When the surgery is complete, the two sternal halves are tightly reapproximated with wire suture and the skin is sutured shut, to heal into a foot-long scar.  The grandsons will stare, transfixed in fascinated awe.