Dad - Day 5

Let me start off by saying that I am humbled by all of the support. I am humbled by the outpouring of offers to help with Delainey, cook meals, do favors, etc... I am very humbled by all of wonderful friends and support that I (or more accurately, we) have both back in California and here in Indiana. This situation has been very eye opening and I am just amazed (and extremely thankful!).

As for dad, today has been pretty much the same. I got a phone call from the hospital in the middle of the night just to let me know that dad had gone into another funky heart rhythm (afib, for my nurses) and they started him on medication to control it. Besides that, he has been behaving himself. He is still on the breathing machine and still sedated. He does need more medication today than yesterday and still opens his eyes occasionally and we can still tell when he is mad (a good sign, in my opionion).

I talked to the surgeon and surgery is on for tomorrow at 8:30am. For now, they can only attempt to fix the heart and will need to try to bypass 3 and possibly 4 vessels. His lung looks more like there is an abcess and he doesn't want to risk introducing the infection into his heart cavity. He said that after the heart surgery we will see how things go and may still need to do lung surgery in a few days.

We are not sure how long he will need to be on the breathing machine and will have to see how that goes. Typically, people come off after a few hours, but dad is a bit more complicated. We are going to try to have an early night tonight so we can get up here early to see him before surgery.

Aunt Carol (dad's sister) and Auntie (aka Aunt Brenda, mom's sister) are both here now and I am so thankful!! Even with all of the support we have had, it is nice to have both of them here as well!

Continued thanks for EVERYTHING!!!! Words can not express!