Dad's been having gut pain and some nausea all day. He finally decided to go down to the local ER, figuring it was a flu that they might be able to help with.
He's on his way to emergency surgery as I type for a bowel obstruction. Mom and my sister are going with him, while I man the fort here.
Dear gods of Heaven and Earth, please let that old man be all right...
THURSDAY UPDATE: Well, he's still kickin'... They wound up removing a good chunk of his remaining intestinal tract. He'll be in for about two weeks. Dunno if I should go into work right now - I mean, there's nothing staying home will do, but I don't expect I'll be much use. (Update as of a few minutes later: I called in. Family before work.)
THURSDAY AFTERNOON UPDATE: We went to visit Dad in the hospital, and things are looking cautiously optimistic. Bad numbers are going down, good numbers are going up, etc. If he'd waited another 24 hours to go in to the ER, though, things would've been much different...
FRIDAY UPDATE: Dad's done some sitting up and walking. He's reportedly a little tired (not surprising) but otherwise doing okay. His heart was acting up a bit, but his heart's done this before. By the weekend they're hoping to bump him up from surgical ICU to regular ICU (which actually means moving up a floor.) (Later: They figured out what the deal was with his heart; apparently, he's getting his meds in IV form rather then by pill - for obvious reasons - and that makes the heart meds kick in faster and wear off faster, making for an apparent jump and drop in heart rate. You'd think they'd know about this kind of thing at a hospital where patients get meds through IVs all the time... And he's still not in any pain, which is good. Anyway, they still mean to move him tomorrow or so.)
SATURDAY UPDATE: Still truckin' along... They want to move him, but can't find an open bed in the ward they want to move him to. (I think that many people do their elective/non-emergency surgeries on weekends, when they're off work anyway, so they're just full.) The weather's celebrating by being summerlike for about the first time since last summer.
SUNDAY UPDATE: Dad's been upgraded to an "intermediate" care room, hopefully on his way to a full-blown regular hospital room. He's looking better every day.
MONDAY UPDATE: He's been moved to a "normal" room, where he'll spend the duration of his stay according to the doctors. They seem happy with his rate of progress. I'm still shellshocked; it hasn't even been a week yet, and it feels simultaneously like a day and a month...
TUESDAY UPDATE: The hospital started Dad on solid foods today. He might come home as early as this evening.
Yeah... Dad's surprised, too...
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3 comments:
I'm glad to hear he's doing OK so far... sorry you are going through so much turmoil! Absolutely family before work - you would've been too distracted to work anyway!
Keepin' our fingers crossed on our end, but he seemed to be doing decently today, and the staff is very on the ball (unlike where we had Grandpa the other week.) The surgeon stopped by and was pleased with progress. He also had pics on his iPhone. (Yes, Dad wanted to see them. I was sitting in the wrong place at the wrong time, so I saw them too...) Turns out it was some sort of adhesion caused by scar tissue from his previous intestinal surgery some years back.
I'm hoping to go to work tomorrow; I get off early enough we can visit after work, and I could use the distraction. I'm just feeling much better knowing something than I was last night knowing nothing...
Just had to say that when I checked your blog the random quote at the top was "When it rains, it pours" which is the very title I gave to the post I made about Dad's recent ordeal over at my favorite cyber-space hiding spot. (BTW, many Sims players are wishing him well, if that means anything!)
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