Diabetes Disease

My father needed a triple bypass, but emphzyma serious lung disease. He also has diabetes. What are the risks and recovery (and how long) he has the surgery? Is it better not to have surgery?

Firstly, good luck to you and your family ... You go through a lot right now. Remember, even if you have a family member who is ill, you should take care of you, too.

Now, to answer your question: Unfortunately, there is no good answer. As you guessed, comorbidities (plus other problems) a patient has, the more difficult recovery from surgery. BUT ... more important than having all these other conditions is how they are controlled - a person who has well-controlled diabetes will do much better than a person with uncontrolled diabetes, for example.

Risks for any surgery, and cardiac surgery in particular, are manifold. Your father surgeon should discuss these with him. Particular attention should be paid to the ease with which it may fall off the ventilator and wound healing, if your diabetes is not well controlled.

A very important factor is the motivation for your father to do the same with this type of surgery. A serious complication after cardiac surgery may have pneumonia, and frequently lifting and moving and deep breathing and coughing (as you can imagine, not very pleasant after cardiac surgery) is of key importance for leave the hospital and well. If your father is not motivated, that his prognosis is not as good.

Regarding recovery, you can expect a heart TYPICAL surgical patient to be in ICU for 1-2 days and 4-5 days on ordinary soil. Increasing the activity a little each day at the hospital and beyond is the key.

There is no way we can say it is better not to have surgery. If you do not trust the information in the doc gives you, go to another surgeon for another opinion.

Good luck.

This question is very involved and it is impossible to answer without your dads complete history, tests, etc. My best advice is, get a second opinion before anything else.