Dad's Hospital Time Line

Dad’s Hospital Time Line (some dates are estimates)

About 2 ½ years ago (after moving to Arizona) Dad was diagnosed with Valley Fever (an airborne lung disease specific only to the South West).

February 17 – Dad walked him self into the emergency room because he was coughing up blood.

February 20th – I (Kelly) flew out for “5 days” to see Dad through his surgery.

February 21st – Dad had his first surgery to remove the part of his lung that had a large amount of valley fever in it. Due to scar tissue from his 2002 surgery they had a very difficult time, what would have been a 3-4 hour surgery took 7 hours and they accidentally tore the esophagus because the lung was stuck to it – which caused a whole new set of problems.

February 25th – By this time I could see he was having lots of complications, including lots of really bad side effects to medications. At some point before this I had cancelled my flight and my sister, Adah flew on the 25th.

February 28th – Dad seemed to be on the road to recovery and ready to move out of the intensive care unit, so with that good news and my sister there, I flew home.

March 1st – Dad’s surgeon called me and said things were getting worse and I should come back immediately.

March 2nd – I flew back to Arizona

March 3rd – our brother, Ian flew out to Arizona

March 4th – Dad’s team of surgeons met with us and explained they had to go in for another surgery to try to repair the lung that wasn’t healing enough on its own (kept deflating) and to try again to repair the hole in the esophagus that hadn’t healed yet either. Due to the hole in the esophagus, he can’t eat or drink and wasn’t getting sufficient nutrition from the IV so they needed to put a feeding tube in his stomach while they had in him surgery.

For him to go through another surgery at that point was a huge risk but needed to be done. They told me to go to Office Max, get a Will, fill it in for him and they would get a Notary in there for dad to sign it. I did that and me, Dad, Ian and Adah went over everything and took care of it.

March 5th – Dad went in for his second surgery. He made it through and was on a ventilator and heavily sedated for several days after.

Several days later – he was able to come off of the ventilator and breathe on his own. Things were looking good but we had many set backs and bad days to follow. Some set backs include (in addition to the breathing problems) “afib” heart rate, sky high blood pressure, etc.

March 10th – Ian went back home to return to work.

March 17th – I had a flight scheduled to go home for a little while. I went to say good bye to Dad on my way to the airport real quick and found him trying to ask for help because he couldn’t breathe at all. I called in the doctors and nurses and they immediately put a tube down his throat and got him on the ventilator. I stepped out of the room while they did that and cancelled my flight.

March 18th – Adah went home to see her family and work for a little bit and returned 9 days later.

March 19th – Dad had a tracheotomy. This was to put a tube in his throat so that they can connect him to the ventilator through that (more comfortable for him than the tube in his mouth). Also they could do the “suction” easier through it so they could avoid the constant bronchoscopes (a much more invasive procedure) they were doing (to manually clear out his lungs). The trachea tube blocks the vocal cords and he has been unable to speak at all since then.

March 27th – By looking at fluids that were coming out of one of his three chest tubes, the doctors suspected his esophagus may still be leaking. They did a risky test to see and he got through the test ok but they found that it is still leaking. They decided to give it some time to see if it heals on its own but if not, they will have to do another surgery (he’s not strong enough to tolerate one now) to reconstruct his esophagus.

Somewhere around this time – Our tough, strong Dad’s spirits started to weaken. His strength and will to fight this is part of what has carried him through so far so we cannot have that now. Increased visits from friends seem to be helping a little. One of his nurses also suggested bringing in a CD player and his music. That was a great idea!! He was actually tapping his fingers and moving his toes to it – very exciting to see.

March 31st – With my sister there, I decided to fly home for 6 days to see my husband and our son (finally) and to take care of a few things. I will be returning to Arizona on Sunday April 6th.

In between this all – We have been trying to get him on a medical flight/air ambulance back East to recover. The challenge is to find a hospital to accept him, which is also qualified enough to take him in his condition and care for him properly. Even if/when we do find that, he has to be stable enough for the flight. Some days he is and others he is not. Today (April 1st) he was back up to 100% on his ventilator (which means the machine is doing all of the breathing for him). He would need to be back at about 50% in order to fly. If we don’t find a hospital then we have to wait until he is ready to move to an acute care facility, in which case, we will get him on the medical flight and get him in one back in Connecticut.

Today Dad's spirits are about the same, however his breathing is not. I walked in this morning to find he is on 100% oxygen on the ventilator, which means he is doing none of the work himself. Yesterday and the day before he was at 70% which is acceptable considering the serious condition he is in. His surgeons continue to be optimistic despite the willingness the hospital doctors show to give up and discharge Dad into an acute care facility. This difference of opinion is because the hospital doctors are looking statistically at Dad's condition, they say "everything is chronic" and there is nothing more to do. The surgeons sing quite a different tune saying that from experience they've seen people just like our father that walk into the hospital a couple years later to thank people for never giving up on them.

Currently in his lungs there is a lot of gunk of some sort (infection and mucus that I believe stems mainly from the hole in his esophagus) that needs to be suctioned out many times a day. There are a few methods they use for this. Firstly he has a tracheostomy, a hole in his throat for ventilator access. There are a few hookup kind of things on this tube that's coming out of his neck. One spot is for something like an inhaler, another is for a vapor breathing treatment, and another is a tube which slides in and out of his windpipe and lung that sucks this gunk up and out. Another method is more undesirable because it's a clear sign that the ventilator (which is life support at this time) isn't good enough, for this they take the ventilator off and use a tube and a balloon to manually get this stuff out of there. The third method isn't used so often and that's a bronchoscopy, using a camera on a thin tube to see where the mucus is and another tube sucks it out when it's found. Today he is scheduled for one of these.

Due to improper oxygen levels, Dad's heart is having some trouble as well, those details are unclear to me but there will be updates. I know that as you read this you may say to yourself, "Jeez, doesn't this guy get a break?" But really, at this point these things are being controlled, he's not going downhill. Like I said, he's standing his ground and that's an achievement everyday. Dad is very alert and isn't afraid to ask for pillows under his legs or swabs for his mouth. If you come in and joke around with him he'll laugh right along with you.

I'm Adah, his youngest daughter who writes this blog. My email address is on the profile page, h_adah@yahoo.com. I answer my dad's cell phone so drop a line if you want. Also we really want people to leave comments here so they could be read to Dad. To do that there is a link on the bottom of every entry that tells how many comments there are (0 comments, 3 comments, etc), click on that to leave one. If you have any pictures with our dad I will post them on here. Thank you for all your prayers. No matter what, God never leaves a man behind. I'm sure my dad knows this and he's grateful for all the support he's getting.

Thanks again, more to come.

Could we ask for a better father or better brothers and friends to help him through this tough time? I doubt it. The past couple days have been relatively good for our dad, he's "standing his ground," and as Springer put it, "That's the best thing to do right now."

Today the doctor is very pleased that dad smiled at her and is stable and fairly comfortable. As of now she said we're waiting for his lungs to get stronger, only then will he have a fighting chance if another surgery is necessary to repair the hole in his esophogus.

More entries to come when I become familiar with this website. Visit our dad at Banner Desert Hospital in Mesa AZ. No visitors for shift change everyday between 7 and 8 am and pm.