Man wakes up from emergency heart surgery to the best surprise ever
John Lancaster, from North Carolina, thought he had a bit of a cold. Turns out that it was a severe heart-condition.
Rushed to hospital, his memory was severely impaired- so much so that he forgot that his wife was nine months pregnant.
“I remember having a cough and then I remember going to the hospital in Elizabeth City and then I woke up here [Sentara Heart Hospital],” Lancaster told local media.
Encouraged to go to the hospital by his wife, Erica, doctors picked up on an undiagnosed heart condition that was affecting his lungs.
He was put in a medically induced coma for 18 days.
On January 24th, his wife Erica gave birth in the hospital where her husband was undergoing heart surgery.
After delivering the baby girl, Erica asked her sister to wheel her to where her husband was recovering from surgery.
“It was hard giving birth without him. It was not going the way it was supposed to go,” she said.
It was then that John saw his daughter for the first time, and memories came flooding back.
Holding her was “better than any medicine in the world. Pretty amazing.”
As John continues to recover after his surgery, his now expanded family are "his rock".
"They keep me wanting to push to get out and get better.”