Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....

Monday, January 22, 2007

early evening babble....

I have loved reading all of the comments that have been made! You all have given us so much support, no words can say thanks enough. Dad is about the same tonight...pressure is up a little but not to the point of making the doctors worry. Dr. Young was able to remove the bandage on dads head and one of the drainage lines. He looks better today! Im sure that Jason will do a better update later...

One of the great things (and there have been many) that have come out of this is to be able to be with my brothers and sisters. Jason, Joe, Anna, Kelli and I (not in age order since Kelli is the oldest, then Jay, myself, Anna and Joe) have been taking shifts staying up here with mom. Mom has been hanging in here like a champ! Lynnette, April and Mike have been awesome as they walk beside each of us (their spouses). The grandkids...our children are just waiting for their grandpa to come home and start carving again. We all are not able to do any of this with out your prayers and support. Thanks again for all of your love for us and our father! Thanks for letting me babble tonight.

it's monday morning...

dr. young is back today (the one that did the surgery). dad's vitals are the same...the ICP (internal cranial pressure) is hanging around 7 or so and they said that any sustained number under 20 is good. there are some specific things that you can pray for outside of an overall miracle. please pray that infection or pnemonia doesn't set in (evidently, there is a pretty high chance of this the longer time goes on). also pray that there ar no blood clots as a result of laying down so long.. we were reminded again that this is/will be a very long process. thanks for lifting us up.

Sunday, January 21, 2007

still the same.....

well, it's 11:45 p.m...things are much the same. dad is stable as far as "vitals" go. it is pretty quiet and peaceful up here right now. it is difficult to wait and wait and wait, but i try to remember that no negative steps back is something to be thankful for. it has been about 52 hours since the completion of the surgery and the most critical time is the first 72 hours. we know that God is good and in control yet it is still not easy.....for now, we will wait.

spoke to the Dr....

Dr. Kachman called the family back to speak with us. he informed us that the CT from this morning shows that the trauma to the left frontal lobe has more damage to it because of the bruising -- extending back into the brain. we do not really even know what effect this may have, and he also said that it is expected. right now, there is no additional surgury planned for his brain, but they are very closely monitoring the swelling of his brain. The goal is to keep the swelling below a "20-25" and it is currently is at a "1-5". It has been at "1-5" since the begining, but they expect it to go up.

The story as we know it...

On Friday morning (Jan. 19th) around 10:50am, i recieved a call from my brother Joe telling me that he needed me at the house. I asked him what for and he told me that dad had hurt himself somehow...he had a black eye, his nose was bleeding and was "a little beat up". I immediatly got into my car and started heading that way. I called Joe back and asked him for more details and he told me that he was having a hard time getting dad up. I told him to call the EMS and he said that he thought Jason had already done that and he was on his way. When i pulled up, i saw the EMS was already there. I walked in and i saw Jason, Anna, Joe and several EMS people along with dad sitting on a gurney. They imediately took dad out in the EMS...not knowing what was wrong...just that something really wasnt right. We followed the EMS to parkview ER and had to go wait. Mom met us there as she flew across town to get there. We had to wait a long time (it seemed like days!) before we were told what was going on. The chaplain kept coming out to "brief"us...but thats all it was, a "brief". Finally, the ER doctor called the family together and told us the news...dad has a broken neck and he is bleeding in and on his brain on both sides....this is very serious. "Its a bad deal" the ER doc kept on saying, but we had to wait until the surgeon would come in and take a look at the CT scan before we could find out for certian what was wrong. Dr. Young finally came in and said that he had looked at dad and his scan. Dr. Young was very "matter of fact" with us which was good. We needed that! He told us very similar things to what the ER doctor told us. He said that dad had broke his neck, C2 to be exact. He also said that he was bleeding in several areas in his brain. He needed brain surgury immediatly. On a scale of one to ten...with ten being the worst...dad was a "plus 10". Dad went into surgury and was there for 3.5 hours or so...he came out of surgury fine but we found out the damage was worse than they had thought. They had to remove some of the damaged area and he would be on life support. We were told that the next 3-10 days are life and death...or very critical. What we think what happend is something as follows: Dad was sleeping down in the basement which is a normal thing. Between 8:30am and 10:30am, he tried going upstairs. This info is a little sketchy because we werent there, but based on some of the info that we have seen, we think that he tripped on the stair going up and fell...hitting his right eye on the stereo and then hitting face first on the ground. This created the damage that we are aware of. We spoke with the cardiologist today and found out that dad has also had a heart attack with in the last eight days, but they have not figured out exactly when. There is a thought that this might have caused the fall be we are uncertain. Dad is in stable but "second to second" condition. If and when dad comes out of the "coma" state, there will likely be many months of therapy that needs to be done, plus until the brain issues are resolved, they can not even think about looking at his broken neck. To sum it all up...dad is in very bad condition. We thank you all for all of your prayers and support and all of the food and gifts. Your love for my dad and our family is amazing and we are extremely grateful. We will continue to update you as we know more. Please continue to pray!! Pray for dad (jim) for healing. Pray for mom (sue) that she can continue to be strong. We do know that we most likely havent seen the worst yet. This is when we need your prayers the most. Please feel free to enter your thoughts on this blogspot as we will update you as we know more. We are very thankful for the love you all have shown.