Lifting Up Dad From Our Knees.....: 02/05/07

Monday, February 5, 2007

Notes for dad...

I wanted to give some a chance to write dad. I figured that you could use the comment section to write dad an encouragement note or if you would like to leave him a note of how he may have touched your life, that would be great too...I would love to overwhelm him with this encouragement when his awakes and is able to listen or read! Please use this section to write to him only and not to us! Thanks for taking the time to do this!

-A

Roller coaster ride...

The neurologist came in this afternoon to see where dads progress might be. He stated that although we see dad's eyes, he is still in comma and that he is not responding right now to us. He told us to continue to talk to him but as of right now, he is pretty much in the same state he was in. He also made a statement that recovery time could be anywhere from a month to longer than a year. Basically, we are still one day at a time. They really don't want to give us answers as to what the future may hold, including the immediate future. We will just keep talking to him, and praying that he will come out of comma soon and have a swift recovery.

One last thing, the CT scan from earlier today was improved. His numbers are staying stable with out any Manittol or Dipravin. The nurse did say that today was dad's best day so far. Thats all for now...more tomorrow.....

-A

More Positive!

Last night the nurse continued to drop the sedation and mom was able to see dad open his eyes again for about 35 mins. I came in this morning to talk with the doctor and they want to take him off of his sedation meds all together if he will tolerate it. I got to see his eyes too this morning. He was blinking a little. He still didn't respond to commands from us or the doctor but this could take time. The doctor ordered a CT scan for this morning. Mom is VERY hopeful. Please continue to pray! The question was asked to the doctor" when can we expect to be hopeful and think positively about dad moving out of the critical state?" and his response was, "when you see him out of the ICU!"
After we get the results back from the CT scan, the doctor would like to see dad stable with his numbers being down for 48 hours. We are not sure what this next step is, just that whatever it will be will happen in 48 hours...or Wednesday morning (hopefully). Please continue to pray...with hope..that dad will be able to respond to commands soon (although dad has never been one to take commands :) ) we will try to have an update for you later this evening.

-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.....

Monday, February 5, 2007

Notes for dad...

Roller coaster ride...

More Positive!

Dad with Alena at Christmas

The story as we know it...

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