January 5 & 6
Wow! If only you could all see the amazing progress that has happened in the past few days!
I missed visiting Dad a couple of times over the weekend because of an icky cold I was fighting... But I was back in to see him on Monday and then Tuesday. He was sleeping both times - and so looked the same (mostly) as he had the past several weeks.
THEN - on Wednesday Katie and I went in for the 4:30 visit. They were only allowing two people back at a time and Mom was already back there - so Katie sat down and I headed back. I looked in his room and almost fell over. He was sitting up, wearing his glasses and looking about as bright eyed and alert as he always had BEFORE the heart attack. You would never in a million years have guessed that less than a month ago he was fighting just to keep his heart going!
Well - I went galloping towards his room and was stopped cold at the door by Mom and a nurse saying that I couldn't enter without wearing a gown, gloves and scrubbing up before leaving. They then closed the "quarantine door" and put a cart of disposable sterile clothing in front so people like me couldn't cavalierly invade the space. NOW - on top of everything else - he has some sort of aggressive, invasive parasite, virus thing-y that gives you diarrhea. It is common in the ICU we are told - and both he and his room mate have it. I am not sure why we had to protect ourselves - either to not spread it outside of his room, or because it makes the patients vulnerable to the foul outside bugs that we, as visitors, tend to set loose in the area. I don't know... It lasts for 14 days - I do know that.
Anyway - Dad was holding a couple of papers with symbols and letters on them. He can use these to communicate. These aren't good enough because he still wants to tell us stuff. So he mouths words to us - and we attentively watch his lips and then say "yeah, I'm getting nothing..." I told him I never COULD read lips. I never understood people would could. Sigh. He kept trying and didn't seem as frustrated as I would have been in his place. Mom did understand him earlier when he asked "Where amI?" When she told him Sinai he said "Oh!" and nodded. I decided I would make him flash cards that ask the important things like "How's the stock market doing?" and "Can I have a glass of wine?" I handed him a picture of Claire blowing out her birthday candles. He looked at that for a long time and smiled. Then later - when he was trying to get me to lip read he was gesturing for blowing on something... It didn't occur to me until much later that he may have been referencing that picture.
I stayed about 10 minutes or so and then sent Katie back - but no sooner had she arrived when they kicked her out so they could give him a new feeding tube. We hung around waiting for them to call us back in - but then gave up at about 5:30. We walked back and waved at him through his quarantine doors.
I just now spoke to Mom today... She was so excited - understandably. They gave him a block on his trache tube so now he can talk. They have been asking him questions and he has gotten most of them right. Some of his short term memory is a little faulty - but for the most part he is doing OK. I can't wait to go see him and just hear him tell us he is going to make it!!! He wants to see his kids - and his grand kids. He can't see his grand kids yet but his kids will be there - and have been there all along!
They were going to do the "intervention" procedure today. Which is the process where they put the feeding tube directly into his stomach. However, before they did it they decided to see if he could swallow anything. They gave him a bit of blue applesauce - and he kept it down, and didn't breathe it into his tube or anything!! Woo-hoo! Go Dad! So they decided to hold off on the stomach tube... which I am glad about, because that procedure is a little harder to heal from. (They have to cut a hole into your stomach for goodness sake! Doesn't he have enough holes for right now?)
OH! More good news. They now have said that he may not have to go onto the pulmonary wing next. He may be able to go straight into rehab; which will be about a 2-4 week stay. Oh yippee!! He is getting better! The pulmonary specialist still says he is not out of the woods - and won't commit one way or another about his pneumonia - but again - He doesn't know Dad's stubborn streak OR how many people he has pulling for him.
The only slightly negative thing is that Dad - although impressively strong for his condition - is having troubles moving his right hand. They are going to do a CAT scan to check to see if he had a minor stroke along with the heart attack. It is not immobile, just has very little strength at this time. Poor Dad being a right-y too... Oh well, that is what they have keyboards for anyway. Right? We will just strengthen his left hand even more.
Well, that is it for me for now. I hope to make it in for the 4:30 visit today - since that seems to be his better time of day. Keep praying!!!!
I missed visiting Dad a couple of times over the weekend because of an icky cold I was fighting... But I was back in to see him on Monday and then Tuesday. He was sleeping both times - and so looked the same (mostly) as he had the past several weeks.
THEN - on Wednesday Katie and I went in for the 4:30 visit. They were only allowing two people back at a time and Mom was already back there - so Katie sat down and I headed back. I looked in his room and almost fell over. He was sitting up, wearing his glasses and looking about as bright eyed and alert as he always had BEFORE the heart attack. You would never in a million years have guessed that less than a month ago he was fighting just to keep his heart going!
Well - I went galloping towards his room and was stopped cold at the door by Mom and a nurse saying that I couldn't enter without wearing a gown, gloves and scrubbing up before leaving. They then closed the "quarantine door" and put a cart of disposable sterile clothing in front so people like me couldn't cavalierly invade the space. NOW - on top of everything else - he has some sort of aggressive, invasive parasite, virus thing-y that gives you diarrhea. It is common in the ICU we are told - and both he and his room mate have it. I am not sure why we had to protect ourselves - either to not spread it outside of his room, or because it makes the patients vulnerable to the foul outside bugs that we, as visitors, tend to set loose in the area. I don't know... It lasts for 14 days - I do know that.
Anyway - Dad was holding a couple of papers with symbols and letters on them. He can use these to communicate. These aren't good enough because he still wants to tell us stuff. So he mouths words to us - and we attentively watch his lips and then say "yeah, I'm getting nothing..." I told him I never COULD read lips. I never understood people would could. Sigh. He kept trying and didn't seem as frustrated as I would have been in his place. Mom did understand him earlier when he asked "Where amI?" When she told him Sinai he said "Oh!" and nodded. I decided I would make him flash cards that ask the important things like "How's the stock market doing?" and "Can I have a glass of wine?" I handed him a picture of Claire blowing out her birthday candles. He looked at that for a long time and smiled. Then later - when he was trying to get me to lip read he was gesturing for blowing on something... It didn't occur to me until much later that he may have been referencing that picture.
I stayed about 10 minutes or so and then sent Katie back - but no sooner had she arrived when they kicked her out so they could give him a new feeding tube. We hung around waiting for them to call us back in - but then gave up at about 5:30. We walked back and waved at him through his quarantine doors.
I just now spoke to Mom today... She was so excited - understandably. They gave him a block on his trache tube so now he can talk. They have been asking him questions and he has gotten most of them right. Some of his short term memory is a little faulty - but for the most part he is doing OK. I can't wait to go see him and just hear him tell us he is going to make it!!! He wants to see his kids - and his grand kids. He can't see his grand kids yet but his kids will be there - and have been there all along!
They were going to do the "intervention" procedure today. Which is the process where they put the feeding tube directly into his stomach. However, before they did it they decided to see if he could swallow anything. They gave him a bit of blue applesauce - and he kept it down, and didn't breathe it into his tube or anything!! Woo-hoo! Go Dad! So they decided to hold off on the stomach tube... which I am glad about, because that procedure is a little harder to heal from. (They have to cut a hole into your stomach for goodness sake! Doesn't he have enough holes for right now?)
OH! More good news. They now have said that he may not have to go onto the pulmonary wing next. He may be able to go straight into rehab; which will be about a 2-4 week stay. Oh yippee!! He is getting better! The pulmonary specialist still says he is not out of the woods - and won't commit one way or another about his pneumonia - but again - He doesn't know Dad's stubborn streak OR how many people he has pulling for him.
The only slightly negative thing is that Dad - although impressively strong for his condition - is having troubles moving his right hand. They are going to do a CAT scan to check to see if he had a minor stroke along with the heart attack. It is not immobile, just has very little strength at this time. Poor Dad being a right-y too... Oh well, that is what they have keyboards for anyway. Right? We will just strengthen his left hand even more.
Well, that is it for me for now. I hope to make it in for the 4:30 visit today - since that seems to be his better time of day. Keep praying!!!!
posted by Amy @ 1:50 PM
2 Comments:
At 3:16 PM,
Anonymous said…
This is Jenburtsmith, I forgot my login because I only created it to follow this!
Please keep posting, I've been clicking on and off for days worried something has happened!
Yay Richard, I'm very pleased you're doing so well.
(((hugs)) from England.
Jen
At 4:25 PM,
Sarah said…
Just a bit more information on the parasite-virus thing. It's clostridium difficile colitis that he's got (c. dif if you're doing a Google search), and the reason for all the precautions is that the c. dif spores can live for *years* even on a metal surface. In most people, c. diff. colitis isn't a huge problem, but for the elderly, immune compromised, or chronically ill, it can be both dangerous and hard to eradicate. Obviously they don't want this spreading around ICU (or outside), but since the spores are hard to kill they have to keep him quarantined. After reading up on it and hearing about it, I'm staying away for a few days so I don't run the risk of bringing it home to Connor!
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