Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....: late morning update...

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

late morning update...

Sorry this is so late in the morning... ( i started this at 11:00 am...several distractions :) )
We spoke with Dr. Young this morning and he confirmed that the CT scan from yesterday was better. He also made the statement that we are not at "day 1" anymore. This was one of the most positive statements that he has made yet. I know that it sounds strange, but that is a positive thing to be away from "day 1" since we have been at "day 1" for a few weeks now.

We are waiting today on information from the cardiologist and the throat doctor. The cardiologist is going to look at dads heart and tell us why his pulse is so high (110) and if this is hurting him.The throat doctor is going to come up with a way to do the trachiosticpy (sp?) since they cant do the normal. To do it normally, they have to stretch his neck to get it in. Because his neck is broken, they can not do this, so they have to come up with an alternative method. This might bring about some difficulties. So we just wait.

Please take a look at the last post and take some time to jot dad a note of encouragement or let him know how he has impacted your life.

We appreciate your continued prayers and we will keep you posted.

As I was writing this, we had an update from the case manager of the ICU. She was giving us a snapshot of what was to come in the future if dad stays stable. They said that as soon as the stability comes, he will not stay in the ICU...but if he has the ventilator, they can not take him in rehab here at the hospital. That being the case, he would be moved to a facility in the St. Joe hospital that would give him the care until he wakes up and gets off of the vent. Once that happens, then he would be moved back to rehab at the hospital (parkview or Lutheran...our choice)..this could be a long process. I will update you more soon.

-A

2 comments:

Anonymous said...: Still praying!!; February 6, 2007 at 7:04 PM
Anonymous said...: Jim
This is Norene I haven't known you
but 11 yrs.but you have made me feel like part of the family. I have grown to love all of you very much. Hang in there You will get better and we will be doing a lot of fun things. Love You
Bill And Norene; February 6, 2007 at 9:09 PM

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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.

Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....

Tuesday, February 6, 2007

late morning update...

2 comments:

Dad with Alena at Christmas

The story as we know it...

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