AIRDRIE: An Airdrie man is still grappling with the fallout of an extensive cardiac surgery he received more than a year ago – a life-saving procedure that was postponed three times due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Luxstone resident Scott Whynott, 56, suffered his first heart attack in March 2019, while he was working at his former job as a heavy-equipment operator.
“I was moving equipment around and was actually driving a really large truck with a really big piece of equipment on it,” Whynott recalled of the incident. “I wasn’t feeling good, so I pulled over and phoned my foreman. They had an ambulance come and haul me off.”
According to Whynott, he suffered a second heart attack in hospital four days later. His heart’s irregular rhythm meant it would start and stop over and over.
“My heart kept starting and stopping over 700 times, so they tried to regulate it with nitroglycerin, [and] they gave me a bunch of other medications,” he said.
“That was on a Sunday. On Wednesday, it started again, and my heart stopped and started over 3,000 times before they were able to regulate it and figure out what medications to give me. I was in and out of tests, CAT scans and everything else.”
In order to determine the best course of action, Whynott said he was booked for multiple heart-related tests, one of which revealed he had nine artery blockages restricting the pumping of blood to his heart – seven of them over 85 per cent blocked.
Because the blockages were affecting the lower parts of his heart, Whynott said his physicians felt surgery – specifically, a quintuple heart bypass – was the only solution to restore blood flow.
But the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic meant the procedure was delayed – not once, but thrice, over the course of 2020.
“They booked me three times for surgery, and COVID kept tying the surgeon’s hands,” Whynott said. “They didn’t want me in [the hospital].”
Cancelled surgeries
Whynott was one of tens of thousands of Albertans whose surgeries were either postponed or cancelled as a result of COVID-19 last year.
According to Alberta government statistics, 15,000 surgical procedures have been delayed or cancelled since August 2020, due to the overwhelming of the province's health-care system caused by the fourth wave of the pandemic. Those are in addition to 30,000 delayed surgeries during the first three waves, according to comments from Health Minister Jason Copping.
Whynott said his surgery’s repeated delays were frustrating and scary, given his physician had told him the procedure was highly necessary.
“I had seen my family doctor a little over a month before my surgery and she had told me if I didn’t have the surgery fairly quickly, I should get all my affairs in order because I wasn’t going to live very much longer,” he said. “I was in dire straits and going into heart failure.”
After more than a year of waiting, Whynott said he was finally booked for his procedure on Oct. 1, 2020. The life-saving surgery involved harvesting veins from his left and right legs, his left arm, and his chest. The surgeon used the grafts to create a detour around the blockages, allowing blood to flow to the heart again.
“So, I’m literally cut from head to toe,” Whynott said.
Following his surgery, Whynott was moved into an ICU unit for two days, where he was only allowed to see one visitor for 10 minutes.
Given how intense the operation was, he said it was highly frustrating to have such limited person-to-person contact with his family.
“Keep in mind that when I walked into the hospital, I was all by myself,” he said. “My family wasn’t allowed [in] and I had to say my goodbyes before. I didn’t know if I was going to live or die – that was really hard on the family.”
He added the situation grew even more isolating when he was moved into step-down care, which is similar to an ICU unit but with fewer one-on-one time with the nurse. Whynott said he was in step-down for a week, and was not allowed to see his family at all during that time.
Inadequate after-care
After being released from hospital, Whynott said he was sent home without any assistance or advice in terms of post-surgical care and rehabilitation. He said he went to the drug store, filled out all the prescriptions he was told he needed, purchased bandages, and started the road to recovery on his own.
“They shake your hand and wish you all the best,” he said. “There’s nothing they can do, as they needed to get me out of the hospital as soon as possible, so I was kind of on my own.”
Unfortunately for Whynott, the lack of professional advice, cardiac rehabilitation, and adequate home care took its toll, culminating in infection setting in on both of his legs. The infections caused his legs to swell, resulting in his stitches opening, and sepsis developing.
Whynott said he dealt with the sepsis and leg infections for over half a year, visiting various specialists as well as his general practitioner every week to tend to the wounds.
He said the hassle should have been unnecessary, as a typical quintuple heart bypass patient would receive months of cardiac rehabilitation, home-care, and other supports following the procedure.
“I’d see my general practitioner every week, so it’s not like I was left alone – a family doctor, she’d give me pills and change the [bandages] when I was there, but it’s not enough,” he said. “I went through seven months of my legs being wide open, sepsis, and some of my muscle tissue has deteriorated to nothing.
“I ended up at a wound-care specialist who did a whole bunch of very painful procedures in order to take out the dead stuff in my legs. I now walk with a limp on my left leg and it’s very painful every day. Some days are better than others and I can walk around without too much discomfort, but some days it’s horrible.”
A year later
Still dealing with the fallout more than a year after his surgery, Whynott said his frustration has only mounted with the Alberta government’s COVID-19 response since the life-saving operation.
He said the pandemic has caused the government to make decisions they “shouldn’t be making,” infantilizing Albertans in the process.
“I don’t think they’re giving Albertans a fair shake, especially [Premier Jason] Kenney,” he said, adding it was incredibly difficult to recover from surgery in the hospital for more than a week, and not be able to see his family in person.
“They’re treating us like teenagers, putting a blanket over our heads, throwing us in a corner and saying, ‘We’ll tell you when it’s safe to come out,'” he said.
While he has the “utmost admiration for the nurses and doctors” that cared for him, Whynott said he hopes no one else has to go through what he did. He added he had to walk away from his previous career as a result of his circumstances.
“I just want people to understand that we’re people, and that you can’t put someone through all of that, and then just pat them on the butt, wish them the best, and send them on their way. There has to be follow-ups.”
Scott Strasser, AirdrieToday.com
Follow me on Twitter @scottstrasser19
