I am sitting with my father right now in the hospital. The hospital has a WiFi netword that I am able to use with my laptop. We are watching Wheel of Fortune. He is resting comfortably and is in good spirits. As a matter of fact I'd say he is probably more comfortable now than at any time in the last three weeks. If nothing else, the floor he is on in the hospital is probably the quitest place he has been in the last three weeks. It is certainly more quiet (almost silent) compared to the ER yesterday. That place was crazy and busy. My mother and I finally had to leave. We just couldn't take it any more. I hated to leave, but I had to. I just couldn't do it. I think the screaming guy that yelled "QUIIIIIITE! LEAVE ME ALONE!" did it. He certainly didn't help matters any.

These last three weeks have been tough and exhausting, but somehow my mother and I have been able to find strenght. A lot of that strength has come from our faith, but also from each other. It has been three weeks of ups and downs.

I do appreciate all the prayers that have been said on my father (Ernie's) and my and my mother's (Carolyn) behalf.

To describe today I have to use words like "exhausting," "heart wrenching," and "peaceful."

My father was taken back to the hospital this morning about seven with chest pains. He is a very sick man. Very sick. He is getting weaker. Yesterday, while at the rehab center, he became winded and very tired. During the evening he was restless. He said he didn't eat the night before, he felt sick. Around seven this morning he had some chest pains and that sent back to the hospital.

His cardiologist came around this afternoon and we had a good talk with him. My father was lucid today, for the most part, and that was a good thing. After talking with the doctor and coming to the conclusion that there isn't much more that can be done we decided to turn off my fathers defibulator that he has in his chest. It is a combination defibulator/pacemaker. He has a standing DNR (do not resucitate) order and he decided, on his own, that the defibulator in his chest kind of trumps the DNR. So, he decided to have it turned off. That doesn't mean he will die tomorrow. It just means that if his heart goes into a weird rythm that defib will not shock the heart into a proper rythm. In short, nature will take its course.

He will continue to be treated via medication. But nothing drastic will or can be done. He isn't a candidate for any kind of radical surgery up to and including transplant. He has a variety of other health problems that make such procedures dangerous.

He is comfortable with his decision and resting comfortably in the hospital. God's will be done.

calls at 3 am are never good. they're usually bad. my dad was taken back to the hospital this morning, early, because of chest pains. you have to understand this: my father has a bad heart. not a so-so heart, but a bad one. not much can be done for him. he really isn't a candidate for surgery, he does have a defibulator/pacemaker implanted in his chest, and he takes a small pharmacy full of pills each day (as well medicine for diabetes), but that's about all he can do. he excercises lightly, but nothing major.

right now, he is back in st. francis hospital, third floor, ccu (cardiac care unit). a much nicer place than the ER, we did that this morning. it was quiter than the last time, which was nice, but its still an ER and those places just can't be cheery, no matter how clean or well-lit they are.

he is comfortable. he is awake. he knows what's happening. he's upset that he is back in the hospital, but he knows that he is safe. this does throw a bit of a monkey wrench into the works rehab-wise, but that will be taken care of.

Dad is officially out of the hospital and now in a rehabilitation center. It is a very nice place, with good nurses, and people. He was released from the hospital about noon time on Thursday and came bundled up in a wheelchair. He looked a bit like a gypsy with a heavy blanket over his head and another one over his lap. He was holding the little radio we took up to him on his lap. He had six days growth beard and hospital johnnies on. He looked like he needed a good scrubbing.

He was able to clean himself up a bit. He washed his face, shaved (with an electric razor, he is on a blood thinner). He combed his, brushed his teeth, and then changed from his johnnies into a pair of flannel pj bottoms and t-shirt. He was able to do it all himself. I helped him a bit with shaving and had to help get one of his feet into the right pant hole, but other than that, he was able to dress and clean himself just fine.

He seems to be able feed himself. There is a little question about his swallowing capabilities, but I think if there is an issue there it is but a small one. He had a therapist come in and do an evaluation this afternoon shortly after he got there. His strength is good, he grip and push, and pull pretty well. His balance was good, too. He stood for about five mintues with no problem. He said he was tired, but that's expected after the ordeal he has been through.

His speech is slightly slurred, but not too bad. I have to tell the folks around him that he does in fact have a Brooklyn accent so its not all slurring! (lol).

I popped in a little while ago, after dinner, and he was sitting in his wheel chair, with his feet on the bed watching the news. He was in good spirits and ready to get to work. I expect him to be there for about a week or so.

The Ernie we have today is so much different than the Ernie we were dealing with over the weekend, particularly on Monday night. He was combative and halucinatory. He kept thinking he was in Pittsburgh and in Rockefeller Center circa 1950. The funny thing is that he knew he was hallucinating and tried his hardest to get himself grounded. He started going through "facts" that he knew: "world war 2 went from 1939-1945," "Hitler, the president, I mean the Dictator, was defeated," "George Bush is the president," "Hillary Clinton is running against him" (okay, he kind of got that one wrong, but he got the gist, if you will.

As I said earlier, the rehabilitation center is good and well staffed. It is fairly new, too, I don't think it is more than three years old. Its warm, which is good since it is roughly 7 degrees outside right now and clean.

my dad is being released from the hospital sometime today. he will be going to a rehab facility for a while, how long? i'm not sure, but i have a feeling it won't be too terribly long. he is ready to get out, of course. we saw him yesterday and he was out of bed sitting in a chair listening to the bible on tape. he was able to feed himself pretty well yesterday. he still has a little slurring of speech, but not too bad. he can walk okay. he is lucid and conversational, in short, it looks a whole hell of a lot better than it did monday night.

We expect my dad to be released from the hospital tomorrow. That sentence feels so good to type. He will be released and transferred to a rehabilitation center. We aren't sure how long he will be there, but I assume it won't be for very long. The last two days have been amazing. Yesterday morning he had a hard time eating, so I had to help him by feeding him. Last night he was able to feed himself a little better, his range of motion was a bit shakey, but he at least got the food (speghetti) into mouth with difficulty, but it was there. Today for lunch he had no problems. He was a bit slow, but more decisive. His speech is slightly slurred. His Brooklyn accent covers some of it, but not all. It sounds like his tongue is just a bit too heavy for him. He can walk and he doesn't need much help. He can lift himself in bed. I feel like I've been watching a miracle in progress. The outward signs look good. I'm not really sure if his comprehension and/or short/long term memory have been affected. I guess we'll see in the weeks to come.

He is excited about the next step because that brings him that much closer to coming home.

Thank you for your thoughts and prayers for my dad's recovery, but also for myself and my mom.

i just called the hospital to find out how my dad was doing. i didn't go up to spend the night this evening. we didn't get any frantic calls from the nurse telling us that he was crazy. i didn't hear any distraught voice begging for me to come up and help him, that's what i heard last night. i talked to his nurse just now and she said "are you the one who was here last night?" i said i was. she said simply "he's a totally different person tonight." i about cried.

i have never seen my dad the way i saw him last night: scared, out of it, combative, wimpering (at times). i was seriously afraid that his stroke had really affected his emotional center in his brain. but, and i think i wrote about this in my last post, i started to look at what my dad needed. he sleeps on his right side. he had been tethered to his bed with bed restraits because he kept wanting to get out of bed. he wasn't able to get good sleep because he doesn't sleep on his back. he can doze, but not sleep. so i carefully took off his restraints and then i realized that his bed was at an angle. his head was higher than his body. he couldn't get comfortable. so, i lowered his bed so he was laying down completely. with in minutes he was asleep. and quickly was in a deep sleep. my dad snores, but when he is really tired he breethes very deep. i mean from his diaphram deep. he doesn't breathe so much as suck in air. i think he breathes through his nose out of his mouth. his whole chest cavity raises when he breathes like that. its actually a bit frightening.

he slept for two hours and had to go the bathroom. that was the first big test of the night. he woke up, still scared. he still didn't know where he was. it was frustrating because i had to get a nurse to unhook him from his iv. get him to the bathroom, then hook him back up and let him sleep. it took me two times of doing this before i realized something: at home he gets out of bed on the right side. my mom's side of the bed is on the left. his iv was on the left of his bed, but he kept getting out of bed on the right. that was causing problems and confusion, so, before he went to bed after a "bathroom break" i made sure to put the iv holder on the right side of the bed. that helped immeasurably. it made life much easier. because of his condition he was wearing adult diapers. this was kind of tough to deal with on a few levels, i won't go into those, but i'm sure you can figure them out. but they were also good because in his half-sleep mind, he was pushing down and pulling up pajama bottoms.

everytime he got back into bed, he would go into a deep sleep. everytime he woke up to go to the bathroom he was a little easier to handle. also, something i learned yesterday was this: urinary tract infections can cause older people to become combative and at times disoriented. he had for the first two days a cathater. that can casue a UTI. i mentioned that to the nurse and they were going to check it. i don't know if they gave him anything, but as the night progressed and he used the bathroom, i would check the water to see what was there. it got clearer and clearer as the night went on. so whatever was going on in the part of his body had cleared up nicely.

he continued to sleep deeply. how deep asleep was he? at about 0600 or so, he had not one, but two nurses do something. one took blood and checked his blood pressure. another gave him a shot. he didn't stir or wakeup either time.

he was lucid all day. making jokes. answering questions and even asking questions. he was "there" if you know what i mean. he wasn't seeing halucinations or anything at all. he was, in his words "bored." i'll take that. really, i will.

earlier in the day he called home, he asked us to bring a radio and bible tapes to listen to. so we did. the nurse said that he has been listening to the tapes one by one this evening. he was sitting in a chair by his bed quietly listening. when she gave me this report, i just lowered my head on to my arms and thanked God. a weight lifted.

we have already gotten the next phase set up. he will be going to a rehabilitation center for a while. there are a few things he needs to work on, mainly his fine motor skills. speaking of fine motorskills, he was able to feed himself this evening. he was able to put fork in mouth. that's a big deal, too. he'd been having problems with that the last day or two.

its been amazing to watch the brain reset itself. that's what its been doing. and i'm pretty sure that the deep sleep he was able to get last night was one of the big keys. hopefully he'll be able to get a good night's sleep tonight and he'll be that much better tomorrow. i told the nurse that if she needs me to come up there to call and i'll be there as soon as i can.

this has been an adventure i don't want to soon repeat.

we got a call this morning at 0900. it was the hospital. the doctor that admitted my dad to the hospital called to ask us a quesiton: was he, my dad, an alcoholic? they wanted to make sure that they weren't dealing with someone going through alcohol withdrawl. dad was very belligerent and thrashed around a lot last night. it sounds like he was cussing a lot, too. he wants to come home. so they have him in bed restraints.

we saw him this morning, but he was asleep, we didn't want to wake him up. my mom and i think he probably needs some good sleep because he hasn't had a good night's sleep since this all went down.

the biggest thing right now, it seems is this: he doesn't know where he is. today he thought he was in coney island on the subway train. he's not, he's in a hospital in beech grove. we talked to the nurse who was caring for him this evening and she said that he has been a model patient, happy, cooperative, and was eating.

my mom and i did something today that i have dreaded i'd have to do someday. we went and looked at rehabilitation centers that have long term care facilities, in short: nursing homes. we know that we can't take care of him that way he'll need to be taken care when he is first released from the hospital. i have to work and my mom just isn't strong enough to do it all by herself. and i'm pretty sure that i'd be a nervous wreck. we looked at three places today and we found two that we really liked.

we went to see my dad this evening; he was asleep, again, but he woke up and saw us. he knows who we are. he had to go to the bathroom so we got his nurse to help him. he wanted his book that we brought for him, part of me wonders if its not a "security blanket" issue for him right: having a book nearby. i don't know, i guess we'll see.

this is very hard. so very hard.

this evening we went to see my dad. he was watching the football game. he seemed to be in good spirits and was fairly lucid. we were able to have a good conversation with him, he was still a bit confused about somethings, but he seems to be on the mend, i guess. i think now, he just needs intellectual stimulation. the more he talks and thinks the better he seems to be. the cathator was taken out today, so i'm sure he is much more comfortable. he was able to lift himself into a better position in his bed using handle that hung from a bar above his bed. i think tomorrow they start physical therapy and occupational therapy. he has to get his strenght on his right side back. i felt much better after i left this evening than i did last night. his color was very good and his eyes were focused (i'm sure it helped we had brought his glasses). he's still not a hundred percent sure where he is, but i think he's gotten it a bit better than before.

the doctor said that they had found a bloodclot in his heart and they think that part of it might have broken off and moved to his brain and that is what caused the "stroke." he is on blood thinner right now, cummadin, to help with the blood clot. he had some chest pains this morning, but those went away.

he is in good spirits.

i don't know how describe my father's condition right now. he is alert. he is awake. he has movement in his arms and legs. the grip on his right hand is strong. he seems to have his gross motor skills, but his fine motor skills seem to be affected-- i think. also his memory seems to be addled, but i'm not sure if that is because of the incident, or because of everything that is going around him. he's very tired. we are trying to get him to relax, but he gets excited when we get there. he keeps trying to get out of bed (i sort of take that as a good sign) so the nurses have put a bed alarm on so they can keep track of him. he can stand, with help, so i take that as a good sign, too. there is going to be physical therapy involved, i'm sure, but i don't much more than that. its the weekend, so there aren't many doctors around, obviously its bad form to get sick on the weekend and need a doctor. the nurses don't know much because they aren't told much. dad can't really tell us what's happening because i either doesn't know, doesn't comprehend, or just doesn't understand, or maybe a combination of all three.

he is conversant, but muddled. he asks about things, but then forgets things, too. when he found out how cold it was going to be tomorrow, he stated: "well, i won't be going to church tomorrow. i can't go out in this kind of weather." he also worried that the heat was on at home for "the cats." he asked if emma missed him. i told both she and woody did. he smiled at that. he wants his glasses, but he hasn't asked for a book, yet. that's a little disconcerting. i may take a book tomorrow and see if he wants it. just to test. books are very important to him. i can't stress that enough. books are his life. seriously.

his heart is good. his vital signs are fine. he looks good, a slight lilt of the right side, but nothing too bad. he has decent color, he's eating, but he started to hack like he was going to throw up while he at. he ate, but i fed him. he wasn't too sure what the fork and spoon were for. he couldn't quite get them to work properly. i helped, i didn't mind.

i'm not going to lie. i've found myself, today, asking what will i do? i can't quite my job and stay home and take care of him, as much as i want to. i'm not going worry about that right now. when that bridge comes, i'll cross it. this when my faith comes into play. i have to believe that God will be with me, my mom, and my dad in the next few days and weeks. there will be a lot of adjustment to make.

so, he's doing well. considering. the journey continues.

Stroke. That's a word one never wants to hear. Its a bad word, a scary word. A word that brings consequences. A word that changes lives. That word was used today on my father. He has had, it is thought, a "small" stroke. I find that word "small" to be no consolation at all.

I got a call from my mom sometime this afternoon, I'm not really sure what time it was. I was at home, eating lunch. Maybe about 130, or so. She said that my dad was sick, he was vomiting in the car and he was listless. She wanted to come quickly, they were in the parking lot of Walmart. I hung up and ran to the car. There was no such thing as a stop sign. It took me about ten minutes to get there. She wouldn't call the ambulance. I got to Walmart and drove my parents' car to the hospital all the while asking my dad questions, trying to keep him awake. He answered them, somewhat. He vomited some more. I have a natural gag reflex when I'm any where near vomit. I had to do my best not to join him.

I got to the hospital and ran to the doors, went in, ran to the desk and told the attendent I needed help right away. My dad. In the car. Sick. Hurry. Two nurses came out. When they saw he had gotten sick on himself the went back and got gloves. One of the got a wheelchair. Another nurse came out. They had to work carefully and together to get him out of the car. One pulled while the other pushed. His right side seemed to be affected. They got him the ER.

He could talk, but not he was out of it. He didn't have much strength on his right side.

He improved, a bit. He can move his right side, he can smile, lift his arms, and push his feet. His speech seems to be a bit slurred.

They admitted him, of course, but there aren't any beds available. He will be spending the night in the ER as they wait for a bed. The nurse sent us home. There isn't anything we can do right now, but wait and pray at home.

In Which Your Faithful Narrator Talks About the Emergency Room at 0530

The Emergecy Room at 0530 is quiet. Its not like the frantic, kinectic place one got used to seeing on NBC's shock-drama ER. It is, to quote a Hemingway title "A Clean, Well-lit Place." Yesterday morning when we took my father to the ER because of chest pains it was very quiet, almost lonely.

The waiting room was empty save for a tv blaring the early morning news and a nurse sitting at the reception desk. They took my father quickly, chest pains equal immediate reaction. They took him, we followed, to room 9, I think. And suddenly four or five nurses just kind appeared, I haven't the foggiest where they came from. I looked for a stage-trap door in the floor, but I saw none. They start asking questions like: how are you feeling? on a scale from one to ten, how is your pain? How old are you? When were you born? What happened? You took how many nitro pills tonight? When? Did they make you feel better? If I had put a bassbeat to it, those questions might sounded like a fast rap. My father and we answered the questions the best we could, it was verbal tennis match.

As they ask the questions, they hook him up to monitors, and IV's. I've done this whole ER thing enough times to know when the numbers on his heart monitor are good. They looked good yesterday morning. And I know that the nice peak and valley of the heart monitor is a good thing. The more the steady and same it is the better it is. Once the uber-activity subsides we sit there. He in bed, my mom and I on chairs that were not designed for long term sitting. The minutes tick by and I wrap my arms around myself for warmth (the ER tends to be chilly) and the silence continues. About 0630, or 0700 it starts to get a bit louder: night shift leaves, morning shift/day shift starts to arrive. A new nurse comes in, this time his name is Greg. He checks my father's blood pressure and checks his heart monitor and all that, takes some readings, prints them out, attaches them to his chart and leaves.

When we got there last night there was or two other people in the ER. There was a woman in the room to the left. She was asleep in a darkened room. Eventually another patient came in. He was probably in early-20's. I was able to learn about him and the woman next door through simple act of inadvertent eavesdroopping. The woman to the left had a migraine, a real bad one, I could and can relate, I've had migraines since I was a kid and I had one so bad that it sent me to the doctor. I felt sorry for her. The guy to the right was something else. He may or may not have tried to commit suicide. He certainly had too much of something. I wasn't sure if it was drugs or alcohol or both. I did hear the word Xanax at one point. The conversations were one-sided in that I could only hear what the doctor and the nurses were asking. I couldn't hear that patient. I felt a bit guilty about listening, I'm pretty sure I was breaching the whole doctor/patient priviledge thing.

Eventually, my mom and I left. There's only so much we can do in the ER, sit and wait. My dad was comfortable and sleeping off and on. He was going to be admitted so we left to take care of somethings, i.e. feed cats and other mundane daily activities, I went and got a haircut, you stuff.

We got a call from dad that he had been moved up a room on third floor, the "progressive care unit." The rooms are very nice, nicer in fact than many hotel rooms I've been in: single occupancy room, big window looks outside (in this case to trees and a parking lot), flatscreen tv attached to the wall, subtle brown hues throughout the room and floor. In fact, it the color scheme does wonders to relax the patient, but also the family. Its not that cold, hard, institutional hospital color of blue and white. If I was into Feng Shui I'd say that the Feng Shui was acheived, but I'm not, so I really can't.

The tests they ran were nothing special. Its not like the tests are going to reveal anything new: bad heart. But to be on the safe side and maybe for shits and giggles, the doctors shoved a camera down my father's throat to check to see if his stomach was okay and that his chest pains were in fact chest pains and not some really bad indigestion. It wasn't indegestion. On happy note we won't have to get to know a stomach doctor on a personal basis-- my father has enough doctors: eye doctor, kidney doctor, heart doctor, general practiction doctor, foot doctor, diabetes doctor...

Right now, they want to do a catherization. They've been wanting to do that for a while, but my father won't let them and its driving the doctors nuts. He had one three or four years ago. That time he passed out in church (actually during Sunday School) was taken to the hospital and was found to have a heart rate of less than 20 beats a minute. That was scary for me. That was also when he got his defribulator in his chest.

The doctors did a cath and then came out, a bit white faced and apologized for doing it. It didn't go well and they almost lost him on the table, so they said, or maybe that's the way I remember it. Either way, it was a scary time. Last night, a nurse came with some forms and asked my father to sign them for the "procedure" and he asked what procedure that might be and she said "a catherization" he said "I'm not going to have that done" and sent her on her way. This morning they didn't give him breakfast because they thought he was going to have it, but he again reiterated the fact that he wasn't going to do it. So they gave him breakfast. It would be almost funny, if it wasn't so serious.

I saved this entry in the "draft" stage for a while. I went and visited my dad in the interim. He was sitting in a chair by the window reading a book in his hospital johnny. His heart monitor (wireless) was stuffed into the big pocket on front of his johnny, his hair was a bit mussed and he watned his razor so he could shave, but other than that he looked like he was feeling better.

I'm not sure when the man is going to come home. Hopefully this evening, but probably tomorrow. Who knows. So long as I don't have to go to the ER at 0530 for a long time, I'll be happy.

In Which Your Faithful Narrator Gives a Prayer of Thanksgiving

I took my father to the emergency room this morning. He was complaining of chest pains and general discomfort. Those two things are not played with lightly in our household. I took him this morning about 5:30. He was admitted to the hospital, but he is doing well and the tests they took have come back okay.