Chris Benjamin

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement.  Chris was admitted to Mountain Vista Medical Center hospital on Tuesday, December 18 for a heart attack. They did an angiogram that night, and determined his blockage on one side was 90% and on the other side was 50%. It was determined that open heart surgery, a bypass, was the best option for him. He had surgery scheduled for the following Friday. Surgery was canceled late Thursday night, because he came down with shingles. We had to wait for these sores to dry up before a new surgery date could be set. Once that cleared up, surgery was scheduled for Monday the 24th. We were literally in the holding room and they were taking his glasses off his face, when the doctor walked in and said the liver enzymes were too high and we had to cancel surgery again. The liver metabolizes the anesthesia,  we could potentially  be inducing hepatitis if we continued. It was determined that his cholesterol medicine, Lipitor, is what was increasing his liver enzymes. They have taken him off that medicine and are now watching his levels decline. I’m not certain what level we need to be at before they re-schedule the surgery. But that’s where were at right now, waiting.