Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....: 01/23/07

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

post from mom....

Dear Family, Friends and all of those who have lifted us in prayer

My heart is so full and so empty at the same time. Is that possible? This is a journey that is not familiar. I’m not sure how to do this. Thankfully, God the Father already knew this and gave all of you to me to help me find my way through it. There aren’t words that fully describe how thankful we all are to all of you for your prayers, food, notes, calls, emails, aspirin, blankets, bedding, numerous offers of help, babysitting, errands, etc. Everyone should be so loved.

Please know that Jesus has wrapped his loving arms around us and his angels to hold us up, through you. It is true,
It is “peace that passes all understanding”.

Jim would be so amazed about all of this fuss over him. But my darling husband would feel so loved. I am keeping a visiting journal of all who have stopped by and we will print out the blog messages to put with them. He will be so encouraged and blessed.

I have the greatest kids. They are strong, loving, protective of Jim and I and each other. Please pray for their hearts and physical stamina through this. Their faith is strong and they have given their father to our heavenly father but pray for more time with him.

Keep praying. If I can ask for a personal request that would make me feel so much better it would be this. I want to see my husband’s eyes and know he knows I am here.

Thank you all….and may God get the glory for all he is doing and may each and everyone of you be blessed for you love and kindness to us at this time and many others in our lives.

brief update...

we just went back for visiting time and dad's ICP number is hanging around 20-21....they have asked for us to keep the stimulation to him as little as possible. we have decided to keep the visitors back in his room to immediate family only. the doctor says that this is pretty "expected", but it makes its hard to accept when his levels stayed from 1-5 for so long. the CCP number is above 80, so this is positive. pray that the swelling goes down.

rough morning...

Got up this morning at around 5:30 am and put a call in to the nurse's station to see if i could see my dad. The nurse got on the phone and told me that he would prefer me to wait a bit. He then proceeded to tell me that dads numbers got a little worse in the morning...about 5 am, dads ICP went a up to about 21. The ICP is the number that measures pressure in the head. Yesterday afternoon, dad's ICP was about 7. They would like to keep this number below 20. There is also another number that is used for measurment called the CPP (i think). They would like this number to stay above 50 and it also dropped below that number. The two numbers changing together caused for a little frightful moment. They gave dad something called "Mannitol" to bring his numbers back to "normal", and they did move a little. The last that i checked, dads ICP was down to 17 and his CPT was up to 56. We spoke with Dr. Young this morning after he checked on dad and he told us that dad is stable and his numbers are under control. He also told us to not be greatly alarmed by this...that in this first 72 hours, it is expected that dad have some swelling and it is possible to have this swelling for up to 2 weeks or so. There is quite a road ahead of us!
Mom slept thru all of this, thankfully and got almost 8 solid hours of sleep! She so needed it! Thanks you for your continued prayers...we will update you a little later

-A

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, January 23, 2007

post from mom....

brief update...

rough morning...

Dad with Alena at Christmas

The story as we know it...

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