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King Diamond undergoes triple bypass open heart surgery
King Diamond was recently hospitalized and underwent open heart surgery. He is currently recuperating at his home and is expected to make a full recovery. King's wife, Livia, made the following post on the official King Diamond website, covenworldwide.org:
"Let me catch you all up on the past couple of weeks' happenings, because it affects many things.
On Monday the 29th of November, King had to be transported to the nearby hospital by ambulance. After several different tests were done and the EKG machine showing abnormalities, the doctors recommended that he get a cardiac catheterization.
Cardiac catheterization is a procedure where the doctors lead a very thin tube up from the leg and into the heart, where it injects dye into the bloodstream. Then a camera at the end of the tube takes many pictures of the heart's arteries, looking for blockages. After this was done, they determined that King had several heart attacks, and three of his heart's arteries were the cause: one was completely blocked, the second was 90% blocked, and the third was 65% blocked.
The only solution to this was an open heart triple bypass surgery.
If you are interested in the details of how this surgery is performed, please look it up online. I will only touch on the basics. The sternum (breastbone) is cut in half and pulled apart, to expose the heart. Veins are harvested from other places of the body, in King's case it was his left leg and chest wall. The person is then hooked up to a machine that practically does the job of the heart, circulating and oxygenating the blood. The heart is then stopped, and the lungs collapse (the lungs stop working since the blood is being oxygenated by the machine). The surgeon then sews the harvested veins in place, bypassing the found blockages. Once the surgery is done, the surgeon moves the ribs and breastbone back into place and wires it together. The chest is closed as well. They use an electric pulse to start the heart and a breathing machine is lead into the lungs to restart breathing. King's surgery took approximately 7 hours.
Everything went well, and King was taken to ICU for recovery. He was walking and eating solid food already 2 days after the operation, and he was the first one in the history of the hospital who walked on his own power from the ICU to normal care. 10 days after the ambulance took him to the emergency room, he is at home and is recovering well. It will be a few months before he feels completely normal and is without pain.
He would like to mention here that he's eternally grateful for the wonderful staff at Centennial Medical Center who took care of him. Dr. Kourlis, Dr. Kamili, Dr. Alang, Nurse Christie and Nurse Thomas among many others made sure that he got the best care and attention he could ever have hoped for.
They were always very nice to me too, letting me stay overnight in the ICU after visiting hours were over.
In light of this, he will be taking a break from music and the music business altogether until further notice. He very much wants to write new music, finish the DVDs, and go on tour, but for now, all those things are in the distant future and he's not thinking about them.
Please understand that the King Diamond band is not stopping, disbanding or anything of the sort. King's health is first priority, and when everything is going good with him, the music will resume.
Thank you all very much for reading this and STAY HEAVY,
Livia"
http://www.covenworldwide.org/
http://www.facebook.com/kingdiamondofficial
http://www.myspace.com/kingdiamond
Mercyful Fate to release new versions of “Evil” and “Curse Of The Pharaohs” on iTunes!
As many of you already know, Mercyful Fate’s Evil is featured as a playable track on Guitar Hero: Metallica. Mercyful Fate re-recorded these two tracks specifically for the game because the original masters no longer exist. Now, the band is making both available to fans to purchase on iTunes! These versions were recorded at Earplug Studio in Copenhagen and Nomad Recording Studio in Dallas, Texas. They were both mastered by Andy LaRocque at his Sonic Train Studio in Sweden.
King Diamond comments: “It was a lot of fun to get a chance to re-record "Evil" and "Curse of the Pharaohs" from our 1983 "Melissa" album. It was cool to go into the studio and try to figure out all the various harmony vocals and see if I could still do them. The other guys had a lot of fun with this project too, and the whole thing turned out much better than we could have hoped for. Everyone nailed their performances and Hank’s solos were even slightly improved. Everything is right where it should be and with a much better sound! The “feel” was there and all of the guys - Hank, Denner, Timi and Bjarne are all naturals. The versions that will be up on iTunes were mastered by Andy LaRocque and even with a 2009 sound, there’s no doubt that these songs were recorded by Mercyful Fate!”
If you have yet to check out Guitar Hero: Metallica - make sure you do! King Diamond himself is a playable character in the game once you unlock the Evil track! Plus, a video of King Diamond’s on-stage performance with Metallica at Ozzfest 2008 in Dallas is included as a bonus feature in the game.
Evil and Curse Of The Pharaohs will be available for fans to purchase digitally on July 14th. A special edition picture disc vinyl single will be available on September 1st!
http://www.myspace.com/kingdiamond
http://www.covenworldwide.org>
Heavy metal frontman King Diamond to join the digital cast of Guitar Hero® Metallica®
Having united forces with rock ‘n’ roll legends Metallica for encore performances and recordings throughout the years, Grammy® Award-nominated heavy metal vocalist and Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond will take to the cyber-stage with Metallica this spring in Activision Publishing Inc.’s Guitar Hero® Metallica®.
Fans, stagehands and groupies alike will have the opportunity to shred and drum with or wail as the digital King Diamond during performances of “Evil.” The song, which originally was recorded in 1983 and is one of the Mercyful Fate songs that comprise Metallica’s “Mercyful Fate” medley, was re-recorded by four of the five original band members for Guitar Hero Metallica. The recording session was overseen by guitarist Hank Shermann in the band’s native Denmark; after which King Diamond laid down his vocals in Dallas, Texas, and mixed the song with J.T. Longoria.
“It's been absolutely amazing to be a part of this Guitar Hero experience. It was quite a trip to re-record the song ‘Evil’ almost 25 years after the original recording took place. The end result with four out of the five original musicians turned out so much better than I would ever have hoped for,” said King Diamond. “Seeing my animated character take form was totally eerie in a very good way. It's so strange to see yourself animated in such perfect detail - cross bone microphone, Eye necklace and all. This game looks and sounds METAL all the way. HORNS UP!!!”
“Ride the Lightning” with musical icons Metallica and 21 other rockin’ acts in an all new Guitar Hero® experience – Guitar Hero Metallica. Enter the world of Lars Ulrich, James Hetfield, Kirk Hammett and Robert Trujillo and experience the intensity and skill of one of the greatest bands of all time. Shred on the guitar controller, rip on the drum kit controller and wail on the mic to a set list featuring over 45 explosive hits from Metallica’s illustrious career and a wide variety of other legendary artists personally selected by the band, such as Alice In Chains, Bob Seger, Foo Fighters, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Queen. Fans will be able to rock as Metallica while performing in venues reminiscent of the band’s epic album covers, themes from their music and real world locales.
Guitar Hero Metallica is being developed by Neversoft Entertainment for the Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft and the PLAYSTATION®3 computer entertainment system. The Wii™ home video game system from Nintendo and the PlayStation®2 computer entertainment system versions are being developed by Budcat. The game is rated “T” for Teen by the ESRB. For more information about Guitar Hero Metallica, please visit guitarhero.com.
http://www.myspace.com/kingdiamond
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