Friday, November 21, 2008

Current Dad Update

I've been a bit distracted over the past couple of days, courtesy of dear old Dad, lack of sleep, and busyness at work. But this is a post about Dad. I haven't done one in awhile (haven't needed to...).

A few months ago, I wrote about how he had a bit of a problem after a colonoscopy. After a pretty uneventful summer, he started having some blood loss again. His doctors wanted to alter his coumadin dosage, but his heart doctor had concerns about that. They compromised, and decided to run a quick check of his heart/pacemaker before any decisions. And that's where they found a problem.

Apparently, his aneurysm has grown. So now, rather than worrying about his colon, he was scheduled for heart surgery. He, my mom and S2 drove down to Billings on Wednesday, and was scheduled for surgery on Thursday at 8AM. Mom called me in mid-afternoon to tell me how it went.

The surgery took over twice as long as anticipated, because the walls of the femoral artery (the way to a man's heart is no longer through his stomach, but his groin...) were collapsing. So they had to spend more time snaking through before replacing or reinforcing his previous stent. I'm not sure what they did. Anyway, they're keeping him a little longer than planned. Because his heart wasn't pumping as well as it should have been, he's been retaining fluids. So rather than coming home today, they hopefully will be coming back tomorrow--maybe Sunday. They meet with the doctor tomorrow morning, so in the meantime, he'll stay in ICU (doesn't need to be there--there's just no more beds available in the hospital). Part of what they'll also be looking at is whether he can walk or not. That may be a whole new set of problems we get to look forward to!
I called her tonight, and the first question she had for me was whether the high school championship game was being televised. She figured that since the Helena team was playing a Billings team, they'd be able to watch it. Unfortunately, it's not. But for the rest of you...the Helena Capital Bruins just defeated the Billings West Golden Bears, 35-14, to win their 3rd straight Class AA state championship! Woohoo!

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