after spending the second half of the week at work distracted and anxious to get home to visit my dad in the hospital, the weekend finally arrived. after consulting with my mom and my brother, it was decided it would be better if i drove up saturday morning and spent time at the hospital on saturday and sunday. the news was looking good. my brother called me friday and told me that dad was doing so well, it didn’t even really seem like he’d been through bypass surgery. he was still in some pain, but he was up and walking around, cracking jokes, and eating regularly. i was thrilled at the news. there was even talk of him probably coming home on late saturday or early sunday. i couldn’t have been more relieved.
unfortunately, things took a really drastic turn late on friday night. my dad had an aneurysm burst on his stomach lining and started bleeding internally. he was quickly losing a lot of blood and because it was in his stomach, there weren’t any outward signs until around 2:00am when he threw up a large amount of blood. they immediately sent him back into the ICU and spent the next 4-5 hours draining blood from his stomach, trying to close the artery that was bleeding, and giving him blood transfusions to replace the significant amount of blood he had already lost. it took a team of 8-10 people working around the clock for several hours.
from everything we can tell, this was just a random event that was likely brought on by the trauma of surgery and possibly the medications he was taking. we have no real way of knowing. it’s safe to say though, that if he had come home from the hospital any earlier and this happened while he was at home, it’s very likely that he would have died. so it was a miracle that this happened when it did, and that there was an amazing team on hand to fix things.
dad was sedated and sleeping all day yesterday. when i arrived in the morning, he was hooked up to a ventilator with a large tube in his throat. it was really tough to see him like that, especially knowing how far he’d come just a few days earlier. we stayed by his side, talked to him, knowing he was sedated, but could hear us. it was a really rough day for all of us, but i was so glad to be home and take some of the weight off my mom’s shoulders. this new complication really shook her up.
today, dad’s condition improved significantly. they took him off the respirator around noon and shortly afterward removed the tube, so he was finally able to talk to us and it was the first time i’d heard his voice since the initial surgery. it was amazing. we spent the afternoon catching him up on e-mails i’d received from friends and family, read get well cards to him, and gave him all of our mundane wedding planning updates. it felt really good to talk to him and see him doing so much better than yesterday.
he’s still not out of the woods yet. he’ll spend another day or two in the ICU as he gets his strength back. after that he’ll probably spend several days in a regular room. i’m planning to stay up here for another few days and try to help my mom however i can. tonight that probably means eating leftover pizza and watching the grammy’s. i can live with that. we’ll get up early tomorrow to beat rush hour traffic and spend the day at the hospital.
i’m trying not to think of how much of a close call we just had. just grateful and humbled by the amazing staff who saved my dad’s life and our continued blessings and good luck.