Dad - Day 8

Today, I took a morning break and didn't go into the hospital until the early afternoon. It was hard to do, but I needed to just stare at something other than hospital walls. Instead, I stared at the TV and watched pointless jibberish. It was very nice!!!

Dad is doing pretty good. They took out his 2 surgical chest tubes and a-line today, and just have him on a nasal cannula for oxygen. He is hurting when he coughs, as expected, but is doing pretty good as far as pain. His swelling is going down and he is doing his little stretches and moves to decrease the stiffness he has from laying in bed. He stood up with physical therapy and sat at the side of the bed for a few minutes later in the day. He is no longer on any drips and is down to one maintenance IV.

Unfortunately, his white count jumped today from 12 to 20. The infectious disease doctor saw him and said that we are heading closer and closer to surgery for his lung. They have been trying to buy some time with the heavy duty antibiotics, but it doesn't seem to be responding. They are not all that surprised since there is no blood flow to an abcess, so antibiotics aren't really getting to it either. They are planning to do another CT scan in a day or so to evaluate the abcess and go from there. Of course, they don't want to put dad thru more than he has to, but obviously it has to be resolved somehow. Despite all of this, they were able to "turn down" his chest tube (put to waterseal) and he has tolerated that great. I asked him if his breathing felt better than he was before all of this at home, and he said yes, so that is a good sign. He is on a better regime for his COPD, so I am glad that he is feeling some difference.

We had some tough talks today about what things will be like when this is all said and done, and he seems to be responding well. He knows that this is going to be a long haul and he is willing to do what needs to get done to recover. He says that things seem different to him this time. Although some may not agree with my tactics, I am honest with him. I have told him straight out that he would have died shortly without this surgery and the whole lifeline transport combined with that has made him realize how close he was to serious trouble.

We also had to have some serious discussions about some other things as well. As some of you know, Mom and dad are in the process of buying a home here locally. Things have been on somewhat of a hold due to inspection stuff, which has been a blessing, but deadlines are up this weekend. I asked dad what he wanted to do about it all and he said to just let the house go. Although I know that was hard for him to say, for him to realize that he may not be able to handle things was a big step for him. When I told mom, she wanted to talk to him more about it, so we did. He said that he was worried that he was not going to be able to do the things he wanted to with the house. We both told him that we could hire help to do things if he still really wanted the house, but that if he was worried about not being able to maintain the house, that was a different story. In the end, he said that he is more worried about now, so we decided to go ahead with it with the understand that he will not do ANYTHING and will just focus on recovery. I also threw in the stipulation that he would not be allowed to stay alone for awhile while mom travels. He agreed and said he doesn't want to stay alone, so that was good.....and amazing. He has even agreed that he will need to stay downstairs at my house and didn't even try to talk me out of doing some rearranging before he comes home. Usually he would try to talk me out of things like this and say that he can do it and that he will be just fine. This is all relieving to me, because as you all know....it's much easier to help people who are willing to be helped!

Tomorrow is Aunt Carol's last day here and I know that it will be hard for both her and dad. It has been a huge help to have her here, but we know we she will only be a phone call away. Maybe we can even set her up on Skype, so dad can video chat with her from the hospital!

The support that continues has been amazing and I am so thankful for you all. It is amazing what a familiar face or voice can do to ease your spirits during tough times! Thank you all for everything! Oh and by the way, Happy Nurse's Day/Week....I just realized today that I think I missed that!