Coronary Heart Bypass Surgery

My Uncle is 69 years old.he started getting back pain.He went in for a physical for his back and the Doctor found he had clogged or blocked arteries.He had an option to get open heart bypass surgery.@June 15,2010 he had the surgery and was in ICU for about3-4 days.Then he was transferred to a regular room on the fifth floor in Oakbend hospital,Rosenberg,Texas.After 1-2 weeks,he was taking vicodin and other pills@20-30 a day.He had a tube coming out from his body to a vaccuum,he had a cut heart catherization and a cut from his leg.He was constantly coughing whitish mucus.His lungs were filling up with fluid and around other parts in his body.The Doctor sucked out the fluid.As days went by.He had a hard time breathing.He thinks the fluid was coming back.The Doctor was thinking there was a leak.He could not figure out what the problem was.The third week-July4,2010.I went to see him @3 P.M.  noticed he started coughing every 5 minutes and he was real restless and they were making him to stay in bed.About 6P.M. He told me he cannot breathe and I ran down the hallway and told the nurse.He was hyperventalating and the nurse told him to breathe through his nose from the oxygen they were giving him.He was getting better [e-mail] told me He wanted me to stay with him,there is something wrong.I asked if he wanted a nurse but he didnot want one at that time.He started getting real red in the face and he felt cold.He had the room @65 degrees.@8P.M. He started resting and he fell asleep,so I did not want to wake him up.I left at 9P.M.I had got home at 9.20P.M.I had a call from the hospital that my uncle passed away.I asked when he passed and they told me about 10 minutes after I left.Should I have stayed longer?Maybe he did the samething when he was trying to breathe through his mouth instead of his nose.He was my best uncle(like a father figure)He was scared.He told the Doctor Sunday it felt like his lungs wre filling up.The Doctor say wait till tommorrow to doa Bronoscopy,etc.What happened?

[ChatterAlly]

I am so sorry for your loss.  I wish I could answer that question, but I do not have any clear and concise answer for you.  Sometimes it helps to talk about it, though. I hope you didn't have to deal with any of the floodong that week either. It seems you did all you could to help him, and by leaving while he was resting was a good decision.  I don't think it would have made it any different had you stayed. Since it was a Sunday and a holiday I am sure it wasn't possible to do the broncoscopy, being that the team would have been off.  Take care and feel free to just post in here if it helps. Ally