Not the news we wanted

This past week has certainly been an up and down one that is for sure. My Dad went into the hospital in Virden on May 4th, his 76th birthday. He had bad stomach cramps, diarrhea, and just generally feeling blah. They ran tests on him and couldn't really come up with anything other than he had a bug and put him on antibiotic. He started to feel somewhat better, but not 100%. Then when they tried to put him back on food he couldn't keep anything down. His doctor in Virden said that he wasn't sure what was going on, and they weren't seeing anything in his xrays so he contacted Dr Dhalla(he is a surgeon here, but also speciallizes in bowel disorders). Dr Dhalla said to bring Dad to the ER and he would see him on Wednesday. He ordered bloodwork and xrays. In the xrays he said he could see two obstructions but couldn't tell what they might be, and he also found out that dad's blood was critically thin. Dad was kept in overnight, put on something to thicken up his blood and a CT scan was ordered for the morning. Thursday morning he had the CT scan and Dr Dhalla said that as soon as they got his blood stable he would have surgery. Friday morning at about 10:15 the hospital called to tell me that Dad was on is way to OR. They said he would be a few hours, so I did up a few things here, had lunch with Gary and then got him to drop me at the hospital at noon. Then the waiting game started, but I took some knitting and I was the only one waiting in the room so could watch what ever I wanted to on TV. At about 2:45 Dr Dhalla came to talk to me, and told me the news I didn't want to hear. It was a fairly large mass, with lymph node involvement but he feels good that he got it all. He said the surgery went well, but that it was a big operation and Dad was not out of the woods yet. So that is where it stands and it looks like we are back to square one. At first I was thinking "well this isn't what we wanted to hear" and then my brother said, what do you mean, the news could of been much worse. So I guess one really does need to look for the positives in whatever situation they find themselves in.

We went to the ward to see Dad when they brought him up and other than being SO cold he was doing well, was so alert and visited right along with us. Nora came in to see him that evening and she said she was shocked at how with it he was and how he visited away with her. He did have a bad night Friday, his blood pressure dropped and they had to stop his pain meds so he got pretty uncomfortable. The nurse told me that he was 'tacky' (whatever that means) and they called the doctor and he ordered a drug to raise Dad's blood pressure and one to lower his heartrate, and they worked and he stabalized enough to put him back on his pain meds. When we went to see him Saturday (after we got back from taking Ryan to the plane) Dad was doing pretty good. He seems a bit down that he is going through all of this again, and I can't say that I blame him. He started coughing stuff up and that hurts! They did not get him up yesterday because of his low blood pressure, but the nurse said that as long as it stayed where it was they would be getting him up this morning.

Yesterday when we went up to visit Crystal wanted to come up with us, which was fine. We hadn't been there 10 minutes and she asked Gary if he could get her a glass of water. She was sitting on the heater, doubled over, sweating buckets and white as a ghost! She felt like she was going to throw up. Gary went and borrowed a basin from the nurse and helped Crystal out of the room, and then outside. She said she was so hot! Once they got outside in the cool area she said she felt some better. We aren't sure what happened to her: could of been that she ate goldfish & a kit kat for dinner, or, she said when we were walking down the hall to Dad's room she caught a smell of something that really bothered her, or, just everything we have been through, the worry about her Poppa, and then seeing him laying in the bed, machines, hoses and tubes around him. Once we got home she seemed okay, he color came back and she ate supper and said she was fine.