The Six Week Mark

You read that correctly. As of today, Dad has been in the hospital for six weeks straight, all but a few days of which have been spent in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit. In a way it seems like a lot has happened over the last 42 days, but unfortunately there hasn't been a whole lot of progress in Dad's condition overall. In fact, in my opinion, he is doing worse now than he was just 1 and 1/2 weeks ago. When I saw him on April 7th he was very awake and alert, happy to see me, and had gained quite a bit of strength is his hands and arms. He was even spelling words out using a paper with letters and brief statements typed on it. Things seemed to be going well.

The 9th is when his lungs collapsed again; things have not been well ever since. Both my wife Jen and I went to see him on Sunday the 12th and I was honestly quite shocked at what I saw. He was no longer alert or happy. He didn't even really seem very happy to see us. I could see the utter exhaustion on his face, and he couldn't even really find the strength to mouth anything other than, "Thank you," or, "I love you," and even with those phrases his lips and tongue would quiver for a few seconds before he was able to form them the way he wanted to get his message across. Most of the time we were there he didn't even look at us, he would just stare up at the ceiling. One of his doctors calls it, "The thousand-yard stare." The doctors felt that some of the drugs he had recently been treated with were at least partially to blame for Dad's lack of focus, so they have spent the last week trying to get them all straightened out and get him back to being more like himself.

I went and visited Dad again yesterday (the 19th of April), and things seem to have improved, but only slightly. While Dad would look at me more and noticed things go on in the room, he still had a difficult time communicating and would just sit and stare at me or others for long periods of time. He showed very little emotion and was very tired from the new exercise they started him on. They put Dad on what they call a cardiac chair and strap him in. The chair is kind of a cross between a hospital bed and an arm chair (I'll post a picture as soon as I get one). It's adjustable, and they sit Dad almost straight up and then push him around the halls – hopefully he'll be able to go outside soon. Dad's nurse and respiratory therapist on Saturday were both really pushing hard for the doctors to order the chair for Dad, as they felt it would really lift his spirits and hopefully help get some of the gunk cleaned out of his lungs.

Dad's ventilator settings are still very high, and when they tried to change them a bit today his lungs didn't react well, so the settings had to go right back up. His kidneys are producing about 50 cc's of liquid per hour now (which is good) but they still aren't filtering like they should, so he is still receiving dialysis every other day. He has had pancreatitis the last couple of days, so his feeding tube was shut off. It was turned back on today and he seems to be doing alright with it for now. The cytomegalovirus and several bacterial infections are still being treated, and he is still receiving blood and/or platelets every couple of days.

As you can tell, there hasn't really been a whole lot of change over the past week. One day will be a little up, the next a little down, but it is averaging out to be very little change overall, which is why I haven't posted anything in just over a week. I promise though, that if there are any significant changes, I will definitely post it right away.

One more thing I wanted to share is about the incredibly huge costs of staying in the hospital for so long, especially under such intense care. Mom said she received the bill for the first month of his stay and it amounted to just under $500,000! Thank goodness Dad has good insurance through the university and for yearly out-of-pocket maximums! :-)

Thank you to everyone who posts their wishes of hope and words of encouragement here on the blog, and to all those who pray, send donations, or help and encourage us in many other ways. All the acts of kindness truly mean a great deal to all of us, especially my mom and dad.