 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
We all have to dance with Death, one day.
One of these days, my mother and father are going to pass through that veil, to await the time when I, myself, move on and hopefully will see them again.
But "one of these days" is not this day. This time, I got my father back.
My dad was successfully discharged from hospital yesterday, and came home to his home, his computer, his golf clubs, and a small meal of Chinese dumplings and noodles.
And lots of love.
Thanks to the doctors and nurses at Hotel Dieu -- Grace Windsor, thanks to the Canadian health care system, thanks to everybody who helped my mom take shifts at the hospital, thanks to my wife who kept me sane and standing upright in the storm, and thank you to all of you for your kind words and support. He's got a zillion follow up appointments, and right now he's taking enough drugs to stun an elephant (12 -14 different medicines), and he still has to gain endurance and strength back (right now he's walking around with the aid of a cane -- and his muscles have atrophied so much, he now weighs less than me...), and we still don't know if the 'abnormality' in his pituitary gland will ever heal completely, and, and, and....
But fuck all that. That can be dealt with when it has to be dealt with. The important thing is, he's HOME. Tags: father08
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Still chugging along here. Been back to Windsor for a weekend trip to visit my father and take some shifts at the hospital. My mom still calls me every night with updates, and, while progress is slow, it is trending upward. He's now reached the point where he can sit up for a little while, and even walk around for maybe a minute or two -- and given where he was three weeks ago, I think this absolutely great. They're still trying to figure out elements of his blood chemistry, but, the main point is that we're now in the 'gain strength and endurance phase.' Well, except for the fact that he's VRE positive, so he's back in isolation, but, that's more for the protection of the other patients than himself.
It's now been 32 days since my mom brought him to the hospital; and about two days ago was the first time a doctor brought up a potential time line for getting my father back home in Windsor. Hopefully soon enough so that my mom won't get sick over the whole thing, like I did. (I picked up a chest cold somewhere, and it's only finally disappearing...)
Unfortunately, the other bomb I've been juggling has been work. Last week I spent three days in Windsor, and I still managed a 56 hour week. I'm probably going to break 65 this week. You sometimes have to do this in small companies (especially when you're the point guy on a lot of stuff), but, man, I really wish that people could make final decisions on things with more than three weeks warning, ya know? So, even though my dad is improving, thus reducing the need to be in the Windsor (or the chance that I'll have to drop everything and be in Windsor now), life is still not normal for me. Well, maybe overwork is normal for me, for those who've seen some of the jobs I've done over the years. (8-)
The bad part here is that this type of work schedule will be happening on and off all the way until late July. So, what I was hoping would be a reasonably normal year is now turning into a 2005 -- and, hopefully my heart won't go crazy as it did back then. I've learned some tricks, and I'm in considerably better shape, and, while the price is high, the benefits for the company (and myself, hopefully!) will be great. In any event, first, I have to make my deadlines for this weekend. Then, I'll hopefully have a chance to step back, actually take a day off that means puttering around the apartment taking a day off, and we'll see what's going on then... and maybe actually see some friends I haven't seen in several months or longer... Tags: father08, greetings
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
This will hopefully be the final update for a while, as my father seems to have finally turned the corner and is now on the slow path to recovery.
The surgery on Tuesday to remove a chunk of his large intestine was 100% successful, though, the actual procedure was more complicated than the surgeon first envisioned -- so, apparently at one point they had three surgeons with their hands in my dad's abdominal cavity, and my dad is now sporting a 10" or 12" long slowly healing incision on his belly. Sarah and I headed down on Wednesday, me sporting a pretty bad chest cold. Thus, I didn't actually get to see my dad except for five minutes on Friday, when we were heading back to Hamilton and I wanted to at least say hello and see how he was doing before leaving town.
Sarah and I got back into Hamilton late Friday night, and, since then, the reports have been positive from my mom. Slowly gaining strength, being weaned back onto "real food" (it shocked me to think to realize that the small bit of turkey my dad had tonight at dinner is probably the first real food he's had since he went into the hospital, sometime on February 8th). As far as the doctors can tell, every condition that's causing trouble has been identified and has been either fixed (pneumonia, large intestine) or is now under treatment (pituitary gland, blood pressure.)
There's still a long climb back; physiotherapy could take weeks, if not months, depending on complications from the pituitary gland problem. (Apparently, that might have been the thing that started the whole affair -- his pituitary gland is barely functioning, which is causing hormone issues, which is what made him so vulnerable to the pneumonia, which caused his body to go haywire.) But, for the first time in 4 long weeks, we know that there's an end to the story coming, and it looks like it will be the ending which we hoped for. After the physio is done, he'll be pretty much back to the way he was. Thank God.
A note here about my mom: we've had our disagreements, but, she's been a trooper through this whole thing. I only hope that she remembers that she has to take care of herself now too, especially now that my dad is essentially out of danger.
Thank you again to everybody for their well-wishes and comments; hopefully, over the next month or so, life will get back to some semblance of normalcy, and people will start seeing me around again. (We'll have to pause for two weeks because work dropped a hot potato in my lap, but, that's for a different entry.) Tags: father08
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Guess I needed to get that rant off my chest.
I've been back to Windsor a coupe more times since the last update, both day trips (because I've been trying to do work in-between). My dad, thankfully, is much better than since the last update. He's now out of ICU, awake, and breathing on his own again, and the pneumonia is now gone. There's going to be a long recovery period as he gains his strength back, but, even over the course of two days, I saw him gone from being almost completely paralyzed, to being able to move his arms and legs and generally shift himself around in the bed.
The bad news: he's got a bleeder, somewhere inside his GI tract. One of the things that they were dealing with was an infection of his large intestine, which they thought they smacked down in time. Unfortunately, it now looks like there was a little more damage than they thought, and so they had to pump 3 units of blood into him to keep his blood pressure up. However, as of last night (before I drove back to Hamilton), he was stable again, and the fact that I haven't gotten a call from my mom leads me to believe that this is still the case. I think they're hoping that it'll just heal itself, as opposed to having to go in with a scope or, God Forbid, actual surgery -- we'll see how that goes. At least, there was no sense of urgency about it, which I'm taking as a good sign.
Some quick notes that I might rant more about later:
- This pretty much confirms again the fact that I would have never, ever had the emotional armour to have been a doctor.
- The next time somebody points out that a private health system is more efficient than a public health system, I'm going to point out that's a personal attack because my dad would have been one of those who it would have been more 'efficient' to let die. There is absolutely no way in hell we could have afforded the level of care that's been given him. That's one of the reasons why I'm a proponent of a public health care system; because, one day, it might be your father or mother or husband or wife or son or daughter needing the absolutely best a system can provide.
I just got an abbreviated phone call from my mom while writing this -- apparently there's a major problem with the
large intestine, and they're going to have take some of it out. So, I guess I'm heading back to Windsor again. Tomorrow, if at all possible, today if things get worse... Tags: father08
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thanks again to everybody expressing their best wishes and prayers. Sarah and I just got back from another trip from Windsor.
The short form: my dad is still in intensive care, still not stable, but, the doctors there now have a working hypothesis and are basing treatment from there. There's a chance that they might be able to get him off the ventilator sometime this weekend, which would make him a lot more comfortable. In any event, while there's always the risk of something going wrong, they've now smacked down the most dangerous things (the pneumonia, blood pressure problems, opportunistic infections) and there's no immediate danger, and a good chance now that my dad will make a decent, if not full recovery.
At some point, I would like to tell the whole story; I think there are some useful lessons to be learned here, if (God forbid) a loved one should require intensive care support while you live out of town. But, right now, I'm just a little too tired, a little too emotional, the information is just a little too raw. Tags: father08, greetings
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Thank you to everybody for all the well wishes. A couple of people have asked why I didn't say something sooner; part of the problem was the timing (I found out about what was going on Sunday, by Monday I was back in Windsor, got back Tuesday night, was in the office pounding code Wednesday and Thursday, which didn't leave a lot of time for LJ posts), and a part of the problem was, well, I didn't know what to say about his condition (I didn't want to say anything until I knew either a) he was stable and had a fighting chance or b) I knew it was all over. The last thing I wanted to do was end up writing a saga about it, both for the sake of people who read this LJ, and for the sake of my own emotional state.)
A quick status report: he's still stable in ICU, but he's now breathing on his own, and while he still has the occasional fever, the doctors think they now have the infection under control. In particular, they drained 300cc of fluid last night from his lungs (!) and it hasn't come back. His blood pressure is now back to normal, and so is his heart rate; and they're now convinced that it's "just" pneumonia, and that there's no other significant damage to any other system. In particular, they've now reduced the sedation so that he's in a semi-conscious state, and he's responding to stimuli. According to my mom, he even opened his eyes at one point, then fell back asleep.
So, hopefully, while we're not out of the woods yet, we now see the path out of the forest.
Here's hoping. Tags: father08, greetings
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
hanrow's journal
