The good news is that you're a candidate for bypass surgery. Although bypass surgery is major surgery, and has risks that you need to consider carefully, it also means that you may add years to your life, and be more comfortable than you are now. Bypass surgery is just what it sounds like - a bypass, or secondary road, is built, so that the blood can get around the blocked road. Sometimes only one blockage needs to be bypassed, sometimes two, three, four, or more blockages will be bypassed during your surgery. A bypass is a new road for your blood to travel through, to reach the heart muscle.
Every person has two mammary arteries.
Each takes blood from just above your heart, and brings it to your torso. Since other arteries are also supplying blood to this same area, the lower part of one of your mammary arteries can be moved, and reattached to the outside of your heart, just below one of your blockages. Doctors like to use the mammary artery because this blood vessel is sturdy and because the upper end is already attached to a great source of blood. If you are having a single bypass, we will probably use the mammary artery. Another excellent source of bypass material is your legs.