Chris Smith

Hi All, Welcome to our CaringBridge website.  We are extremely lucky to have a large community of wonderful friends and family who share concern for Chris' progress toward recovery from the massive heart attack he suffered late last week. We are using CaringBridge to keep family and friends updated.  This allows us to tend to dad and our own family. It also allows you all to share with us.  We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. 

April 6th, on the way to pick up grandkids and family from SeaTac, mom and dad stopped for coffee. Dad collapsed in front of a Starbucks in Burien with a heart attack. Starbucks' employees and kind passersby administered CPR immediately, comforted mom, and helped arrange transportation for the family arriving at the airport. Dad had paramedic attention quickly, was resuscitated and transported to Highline Medical Center where he got swift care. He spent most of the weekend in a medically induced coma  while doctors found and removed the obstruction in one of his coronary arteries and inserted a stent.  His test results indicated that his heart function was strong and Sunday, doctors were hopeful that dad could be removed from breathing support.  They tried lifting his sedation and ran some breathing trials, but he wasn't quite ready.  Monday, doctors determined that dad had developed mild pneumonia and will need to keep the assistive breathing apparatus at least through the end of the week. Mom and Sasha and I are commuting to the hospital to keep dad company. He's under pretty heavy sedation but has been able to squeeze our hands, nod and shake his head, and lift his eyebrows. We even got a chuckle out of him Monday night. These interactions bolster our hopes that dad will regain strength and function. We brought new music for him to listen to today and now that he is captive  audience, I plan on finally exposing him to The Hobbit. 

We appreciate the many offers of support as well as the help we have received and will call on these when we know we can make use of them.  Check back as we will post here regularly when there are updates to dad's condition. Much love and thanks to all for the support and concern for our family.
-Nat