Aug 1, 2026
Robotic bypass completed
LIMA to LAD; approximately six hours of surgery; breastbone intact.
BILAL’S STORY · SCARSTORIES FOUNDER
The Skipped Beat
An ordinary flutter. An unexpected diagnosis. And the slow work of finding my way home.
Robotic LIMA-to-LAD bypass · 1 August 2026
Knowledge did not remove the fear. It turned fear into a plan.
A STORY WITH ROOM TO CONTINUE
Milestones and later chapters
Aug 5, 2026
Home on postoperative day four
Less than 24 hours in ICU, ward recovery and chest-drain removal on postoperative day three.
Aug 9, 2026
The original story is written
The historical narrative stops here; planned treatment and follow-up were not yet completed events.
Aug 27, 2026
The staged stent — the second procedure
Stage-two PCI at King's. After the bypass changed the flow, a fresh angiogram re-checked every lesion; only the proximal circumflex (LCx) needed a drug-eluting stent. Access was through the right femoral artery. The dominant right-coronary lesion was left to medical therapy, and DAPT was reset to 6–12 months from this date.
Sep 6, 2026
Cleared, with no restrictions
Follow-up review. The earlier LDL result of 0.45 mmol/L was confirmed against the original report, and I was cleared to return to normal activity with no restrictions.
Sep 9, 2026
A second September measurement
The next report recorded LDL at 0.37 mmol/L and ApoB below range. It is logged separately so dates and results stay together.
Sep 23–25, 2026
Back to full days
Three consecutive days above twelve thousand steps — 14,295, 14,835 and 12,535 — the first time activity returned to pre-surgery levels.
Sep 28, 2026
The September panel closes
The Al-Borg draw recorded LDL 0.31 mmol/L, the lowest yet, alongside HbA1c 5.9 % — the one number that drifted the wrong way, to be raised at the next review.
A personal account, reorganized from the author’s Qalb story. Family names, hospital names and removed personal details remain omitted. Peer stories do not replace care-team advice.