Prayers

My dad's in the hospital, in ICU, so the past few days have pretty pretty stressful. He was having some severe stomach pain last week that eventually caused him to go to the emergency room on Thursday, I think it was, and he was admitted and diagnosed with some kind of a colon or bowel infection and given antibiotics.

Then they did some more tests and decided it wasn't an infection, but that his colon was twisted, and they decided they needed to do a colon resection. Then on Saturday he had an episode of extremely low blood pressure and extremely high heart rate which they attributed to a very low potassium level, and they put him in ICU, where he's been since.

Yesterday he had an echocardiogram to see if his heart had been damaged (we haven't heard results yet), and today he was scheduled for a heart catheterization to see if he had any blockages, but the cardiologist came by today and said that if he needed the colon resection, they'd better go ahead and do that rather than do the catheterization, since as far as I know, he hasn't been having any heart problems. They apparently want to do it just because of his age. So now I guess we're waiting for the cardiologist and the gastroenterologist to get together and decide what to do.

So, I'm worried. I feel like I can't really take any time off if I don't have to, since I was just off for two weeks for my own health problems, so I've been coming to work, prepared to leave if they ever do schedule surgery. That seems like the most prudent course--Mom would probably be glad for the company if I was hanging around the hospital with her, but while Dad would probably be glad to see me, he needs to rest, and if there is someone there, he trys to stay awake. That's my justification, anyway . . .

Later . . .

Mom called and said that the surgeons have decided to do the catheterization first, because he apparently had a "couple" of elevated cardiac enzymes, which I guess means that they don't know why he had the elevated heart rate, and it might have been something other than the potassium levels. If they find any blockages they'll deal with them then by cleaning out the arteries and putting in a stint. And then I guess he'll have to recover from that before they can do the other surgery. My sister is planning to take off work and go out to the hospital tomorrow to be with Mom, so I probably won't, unless something changes. Mom said she'd call me when it was over, I said no, call me as soon as you know when it is, and she said, "Okay, I'll call you and let you know so you know when to start worrying."

I don't know if I said it here or not, but during my time in the hospital, and during the days and weeks before and after, I felt like I was being buoyed up by being kept in thoughts and prayers by people all around the world, and I know that it made a difference. So if you could add my dad to your prayers tonight, I'd appreciate it.