It all began on Thursday March 25th

I got home at 9ish... but on my PJ's and got a text ... "waiting for ambulance to take Dad to hospital"... got dressed and waited for the call as to what hospital. Reason... Dad unable to stand on legs he falls each time he tries.... this man weighs 294 lbs... no way to lift him into bed or anyplace else. BIL and nephew had already made two attempts at putting him in a chair from the ground.

Arrived at Pioneer Valley Hospital about 10pm. Waiting waiting.... Dad in pain not much happening.... They decide to do an MRI.... takes a while to gets things rolling in that direction. At 2am they take him to MRI and Randy and I go home for a few hours sleep before the work morning begins.

At 5:30 get text they have transported him to I-Med appears to have some spinal compressions and there is nothing they can do for him at PVMC. I call work tell them I am going to be late, they say don't worry about coming in ... so I head to I-Med.

1st plan is possible surgery... but reflex is inconsistent with what the Doc expects to see with Spinal Stenosis so he wants another MRI so they can look at the top part of the spine. This is Friday morning early ... by 8pm Friday still no MRI apparently in hosp patients fall beyond everyone else that needs one. I finally leave because I have a race in the morning and am running on 4 hrs sleep and I am hungry ... which for me = one cranky chic.

Some time during the night they attempt the MRI but he will not fit in the machine at I Med... so in the Morning Doc works for 1.5 hrs to find a place that will give him an MRI... they transport via ambulance to a facility near Murray High (across the street from the hospital). (Had stopped by after the race and take this opportunity to go shower and eat get back about 3pm) He gets over there and freaks out in the machine and they don't get a clear picture... a bit like taking a photo of a running child... blurr.... . They want to do another with dye and he refuses. Maybe due to pain and maybe because I am allergic to the dye and he is anxious about that.

Needless to say Doc is not happy about this. They see some possible compressions in the upper back and neck region... so they call in a Neuro Surgeon. He also wants a more clear picture to look at ... so now we order a CT Scan with dye around the spine.

R and I leave to run some errands (like buy produce for home) and get a call while at the store that I need to come back because my Dad is freaking out... which in turn stresses out my Mom. So Randy drops me off and goes home to put the groceries away. We send my mom home and get things settled down... watch them hook him up to a sleep study... still have no clue why they did this. That took forever and went home about midnight 30.

My sister was on Sunday day duty and by this time they have my Dad so drugged up on pain meds .. that he forgets to breath... so we have to keep waking him up to breath ... several times he is near unwakeable.. (is that a word) . He rambles things that don't make sense (some of it funny most of it not) ...he is very mean and combative. They do a blood gas test... and find that because of the non breathing thing he is not expelling the carbon dioxide... and that is causing the combativeness and the mind changes... I had taken Riley with us to the hospital thinking we would not be there for long... had Zach pick him up about 9pm.. He was so good the poor little guy... and I think I got to see every nook and cranny of that hospital keeping Riley busy .

At about 10pm or later they determined he is in respiratory failure and move him to Respiratory ICU. It takes over an hour to get him settled in there. They finally do and he seems to be sleeping... so R and I finally leave get home at 12:30ish. Cereal for dinner two nights running.

I go up Monday fully intending to go to work ... but when I get there my Dad is ranting and raving about being in the Marines and thinking he has been captured or something. Thought he was shot in the butt. It was quite interesting... figured by Mom could not handle that ... so I called work and stayed. At least I had the fore thought to put my crochet bag in the truck before I headed out. Left at 4pm .. picked up Riley and we went shopping for a new outfit for picture day. He is so funny and love clothes... he kept saying no that is not Utah shirt... but I could not find a size 4 Utah shirt.

That is where we are at for now 4-5 specialists 3 medical doctors, 2 MRI's, 3 CT scans 2 chest xrays, IV's, feeding tubes, and an Aritial line and we basically know nothing.... but as of yesterday he will not have surgery... as it does not appear it will fix anything. updates as they come.

If your confused just ask... because I am too.

xoxoxox
Dottie