Life sucks and then?

So, since I'm not functioning in any sort of thinking capacity I thought I'd update the 2 people who read my blog ;)

Let's see, where did I leave off. Yes, my dad was recovering nicely from his shoulder surgery. Then the sky fell in.

I came back from visiting him Friday at lunch to get back to work. Work work work. Then at 3:30 I get a call from the pain management nurse. He's had another stroke. Now, my dad had a stroke back in November that brought the world crashing down on us all, but he did recover 100% from that one. Needless to say I packed up and pretty much ran from the lab to the hospital.

Now, background on this one. We don't know what might have caused this one, but there was a major fuckup post surgery for my dad. The surgeon's "assistant" ?forgot? to write up post-op instructions which is why my dad didn't get painkillers till the next day. Well apparently also in these not written post-op instructions was supposed to be instructions for him to get heparin since he'd had the one stroke in november. We still haven't decided what to do on that note with the hospital. No one's focused enough to threaten a lawsuit yet.

So anyways. It's Friday evening, my dad can no longer talk/swallow. Thank goodness he still has mobility in his limbs, this stroke seemed to be restricted to just facial nerves. We're raking the surgeon over the coals as to what was supposed to have been done post surgery and why there were no instructions written.

I don't remember too much of Friday to be honest. My world was crashing down around me and I couldn't do anything about it.

Saturday, back to the hospital (I've taken the car away from my mom and have been driving back and forth a number of times in a day). Tests tests and more tests. Chest x-rays to make sure he's not aspirated any liquids. He's not allowed anything by mouth. He's frantic, we're frantic. And then his breathing gets strained. I don't even know if this was saturday or sunday at this point. Doc comes in later and says that my dad has pulmonary embolisms in his lungs. In simple terms, he has blood clots in his lungs which are cutting off his air. So now I'm watching my dad struggle to breathe and I'm scared to death. I know it's not good. Thankfully they finally get a heparin drip going after much debate with the neurology asshole who didn't want to give him heparin, and the ortho doc (covering his ass) wanting to. So finally the ortho doc just did it. And I'm glad he did.

They hooked him up to the heparin drip and also transferred him out of the ortho ward and into the trauma ward where he got to be monitored 24/7. Much better. They were monitoring his oxygen intake and blood pressure etc. No one has anything comforting to say. Just monitoring. Hour to hour. More tests will be booked monday.

On top of all this, we have a house to look at Saturday afternoon. It's the last thing in the world I want to do, but need to do something. The house is nice, really nice, we want to write an offer. So we go to write an offer and find out we're competing (not surprised). The offers won't be presented until Sunday morning. Back to the hospital.

Sunday morning, back to the hospital. Checking phone messages on the house. Finally some good news. We have a house! Will post pics soon.

Back to the hospital. Trying to contact my sisters in amongst all this. Both are not in town. They're frantic. Trying to keep everyone updated. Getting really tired.

Monday, they take some of the monitoring stuff off. That's got to be good right? I leave my mom at the hospital and try to work. Back to the hospital later, check on him. He's hanging in there. They've turned down his oxygen and given him a nasal canulla instead. The speach pathologist has come in to give him a swallowing assessment. He can start to have some fluids. I think it's probably the best cream of carrot soup he's ever had. Supposed to be a busy day, but they only take him off for one test. Well hopefully more Tuesday.

I'm getting tired of updating people. I know they want to know, but I'm tired of talking about it. Back to the hospital Tuesday morning, they've kidnapped him for some tests, finally. So he gets a bunch done including a wierd "bubble echo" where they inject saline into him to check his heart. It's quite uncomfortable for him in his chest so they give him nitro which knocks him out so bad he can't eat.

Oh and we got our approval on our mortgage, yay!

So now we come to today (Wednesday). Hospital this morning, they've kidnapped him yet again for an x-ray of his shoulder (the least of our worries at the moment). And they're talking about transferring him to the Glenrose for specific therapy for the shoulder and the stroke. He's starting to seem more like himself. His speach is becoming easier to understand and he can take larger drinks, still through a straw, but it's progress.

Now the concern is why the clots got to where they are. The current hypothesis is that he has a small hole in his heart that's allowing them to get where they shouldn't be. So more testing. They want to stop the heparin drip and put him on a pill blood thinner. So I'm guessing we are making progress. I have to look at it that way. Just going over the past few days to write it down has brought tears to my eyes again.

Tonight, I won't be at the hospital. With buying this house, we are looking at the school that my step-son will most likely be attending. Convieniently the open house is tonight at the school. I'm nervous to leave my dad, but I really need to get to bed before midnight-2am.

Now to see if I can figure out how to put up house pics.