Day Two, part two
My post from 11 pm on December 9:
We spent pretty much the entire day at the hospital, though visiting hours were few and far between. But he looked MUCH better today -- not so much swelling and more color (though still very, very ill). The second trip in four hours later was a bit depressing, because he looked the same as before, but we were reminded that his progress will be measured in weeks, not hours. The third time, this evening, however, was a huge improvement -- they had taken him off the sedation for a while, and he was conscious and responsive (but forbidden to talk -- he had a breathing tube in and all sorts of other apparatus types). My mother, my sister and I were in there at one point, and my sister and I said we might go, and he shook his head no!! My other two sisters came in shortly thereafter and we all had a long visit. Dad even showed a sense of humor -- my younger sister joked, "Dad, you need a pedicure!" and he wiggled his toes. Then the most remarkable thing happened as we were leaving -- my mom leaned to give him a kiss, and he not only kissed back, but puckered up insistently for more! The nurse said in 12 1/2 years she's never seen the like. It was SO cute.
From a medical standpoint, he's not completely out of the woods yet. His blood pressure is a bit unstable, so his condition is still technically critical. But at mid-afternoon the surgeon said my father was doing better than he'd expected, so that's very good news. We are hoping that tomorrow will bring further progress. My brother is a patient advocate at another hospital, so he's familiar with how things work for cardiac patients (and he has known all the right questions to ask, so he's been very useful this week). He said they're normally in the hospital for 5-7 days, but my Dad's heart was so damaged by the heart attack (I gather they're talking about the strain on it, aside from the blockage itself -- this is all new to me) that he will probably have to spend some time in rehab before he comes home.
Anyway, tomorrow will be another long day at the hospital for us all, but I hope in another 24 hours he'll be declared stable. This was such a long day -- I can't quite grasp that it's been less than 24 hours since he got out of surgery, and only 30 hours since the onset of the attack. It feels like weeks.
We spent pretty much the entire day at the hospital, though visiting hours were few and far between. But he looked MUCH better today -- not so much swelling and more color (though still very, very ill). The second trip in four hours later was a bit depressing, because he looked the same as before, but we were reminded that his progress will be measured in weeks, not hours. The third time, this evening, however, was a huge improvement -- they had taken him off the sedation for a while, and he was conscious and responsive (but forbidden to talk -- he had a breathing tube in and all sorts of other apparatus types). My mother, my sister and I were in there at one point, and my sister and I said we might go, and he shook his head no!! My other two sisters came in shortly thereafter and we all had a long visit. Dad even showed a sense of humor -- my younger sister joked, "Dad, you need a pedicure!" and he wiggled his toes. Then the most remarkable thing happened as we were leaving -- my mom leaned to give him a kiss, and he not only kissed back, but puckered up insistently for more! The nurse said in 12 1/2 years she's never seen the like. It was SO cute.
From a medical standpoint, he's not completely out of the woods yet. His blood pressure is a bit unstable, so his condition is still technically critical. But at mid-afternoon the surgeon said my father was doing better than he'd expected, so that's very good news. We are hoping that tomorrow will bring further progress. My brother is a patient advocate at another hospital, so he's familiar with how things work for cardiac patients (and he has known all the right questions to ask, so he's been very useful this week). He said they're normally in the hospital for 5-7 days, but my Dad's heart was so damaged by the heart attack (I gather they're talking about the strain on it, aside from the blockage itself -- this is all new to me) that he will probably have to spend some time in rehab before he comes home.
Anyway, tomorrow will be another long day at the hospital for us all, but I hope in another 24 hours he'll be declared stable. This was such a long day -- I can't quite grasp that it's been less than 24 hours since he got out of surgery, and only 30 hours since the onset of the attack. It feels like weeks.
posted by Emily @ 11:35 PM
1 Comments:
At 11:51 PM,
Dad's family said…
The farther along we come the more we realize that he is NOT out of the woods - but is on the right path. This is definitely two steps forward and one step back... By the end of the day on Thursday we were pleased and proud with Dad's progress. We WERE getting some responses and Dad was trying SO hard to communicate with us. This we took as a really good sign - although we kept telling him to relax and not worry about anything - to just let his body rest and heal.
Post a Comment
<< Home