Recovery update
It’s been a crazy week, but it seemss like things are finally looking up for our surgery buddies.
Cleadus had a tough couple of days waiting for his colon to calm down and allow his intestines to “wake up” so that he could pass solid food through his system again. He kept getting sea-sick and nauseated from the medications, and didn’t enjoy his time in the hospital much. Apparently, having nothing to do isn’t as much of a vacation when you don’t feel well and your body won’t respond the way you want it to. Sorry about that, Cleadus. However, things seemed to even out on Friday night, and with as much walking as he was doing, the doctors released him with a clean bill of health on Sunday morning and he was able to go home and be with his girls for Easter. YAY!
One of the sweetest sidenotes to that is cute little Grace. Grace recognized that Daddy wasn’t having a good time at the hospital and gave him her ‘baby’ to be with him and make him feel better. That baby is Grace’s woobie and goes with her EVERYWHERE…she loves it, cuddles it, cares for it like her own baby…so you can imagine just how much she loves her dad to part with her baby to make HIM feel better.
We’re so glad that Cleadus is home and recovering quietly there. Congrats! and thanks again for the amazing generosity to dad and our whole family!
Speaking of dad…there we had a couple of issues more serious than sleepy bowels for Pa. Thursday morning I had a call from Jon as I was driving to work to tell me that Dad had experienced a “trivial” heart attack that morning. He had been recovering well from the kidney transplant, and his toxin levels had already gone way down, indicating that the kidney was working well. The staff took his progress as a good sign and had moved him up to a regular room on the 5th floor, which is where he had the heart attack. I won’t say “trivial” again, because any heart attack should never be termed something so flippant. The attack immediately sent dad back down to the ICU. Doctors there took a scan of the heart and noticed some blockage…nothing too scary, but something to keep in mind and be aware of while treating for the kidney…they considered an angioplasty or balloon to break up the blockage, but decided to wait a little bit until the kidney was more secure. They put him on some Heparin to thin his blood and prevent any other clotting, and washed their hands of the problem. Things seemed to be going well again…another trip up to the 5th floor…where dad started complaining of abdomen pain and then had a seizure. Back to the ICU where it took them quite a while to figure out that the Heparin had thinned his blood so much that it was now seeping through the sutures into his stomach and kidney. Not good. They spent the next day trying to find the fine line between thin enough blood not to cause another heart attack, but not SO thin that it leeks into his other organs. They promised no further trips to the 5th floor until they were SURE he was out of trouble. By Sunday night, he was still in the ICU, but doing well enough that they wanted him to sleep. The nurses gave dad a sleeping pill and promised not to poke and prod him every 20 minutes so that he could enjoy a few hours of uninterrupted zz’s.
After all of that, as of this morning, dad is doing much better. SO much better, in fact, that they’re discussing sending him home today or tomorrow. YAY! It’s such an amazing blessing to see what modern medicine means and to see it work in the lives of our loved ones! Congrats on the success of the surgery dad, welcome home soon, and we love you!!!
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