King Diamond Gets a Present for Christmas…


…and it’s a shiny, newly refurbished heart.

Diamond’s wife Livia breaks news of the several heart attacks which culminated in the diabolical falsetto’s recent triple bypass open heart surgery in a fairly harrowing post on Coven Worldwide. Here’s an excerpt:

“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.”

Hmm, his own power? Or the power of some darker, more primeval force?

Diamond is, as readers might guess, on an indefinite hiatus as he recuperates. As a magazine with a blog that dedicates an entire category to “King Fucking Diamond,” Decibel obviously is considering sacrificial options we can pursue to help ensure a speedy recovery. But whether the blood of goat or chicken runs beneath our blade this day…Fear not King! We won’t break the oath!