yorkem
The Terra Cotta King
Normally I would not make this post but as a participant in The Morgan Cup I have accepted certain responsibilities. Responsibilities to my sponsor, to Josh and Morgan, and to the THP forum as a whole. As some of you may have noticed I have not been on the forum for the last 3 weeks and I felt you all deserved an explanation. It has been a difficult few weeks for my family.
It started with my Father being diagnosed with bladder cancer. He, along with the rest of my family, lives in New York while I am in North Carolina. Luckily they had caught it very early and they were going to be able to scrape a layer of the interior of his bladder through a catheter to remove it. I asked if I should come up and he assured me that the doctors said this was caught really early and he would be back on his feet in a couple of days and that my brother and sister would be able to handle it. The surgery went well, but a couple of days after it he noticed his left foot was a slightly different color than his right. A week prior to the surgery he was taken off of the blood thinners that he has taken since he had a stroke almost 10 years ago and he immediately knew what was wrong. He called my sister to take him to the emergency room. She called me at 3:30pm to tell me what was happening and I was on a plane and in the hospital in 5 hours.
When I arrived my Father was in surgery for a 7" blood clot in his left leg. They inserted a sheath in his right hip going across his body to his right leg pumping him full of heperin (a blood thinner) and a catheter starting at his left arm leading to his left leg with TPA (a clot buster). They had pumped him so full of fluids that he was in congestive heart failure but because of the sheath in his hip he had to stay flat on his back which made it nearly impossible for him to breathe. They came out and asked for help with him because he was so agitated he kept knocking the mask off so I went in to try and calm him. I was greeted by a site the will haunt me forever. My Father with 8 IV's going, his left leg almost completely black from lack of blood, nurses struggling to keep him from pushing the oxygen mask off and a look of complete terror in his eyes. I was unable to calm him as he begged me to take the mask off of him and just take him home. The doctor then asked me (the youngest by the way) to make the decision to either strap him down to the bed or chemically induce a coma and put him on a tube to breathe. I chose to have him strapped down...it was not a decision I was prepared to make.
We were then told by the doctors that we should prepare ourselves to make a decision on removing his leg as there was only about a 30% chance this would work with the blockage he has. Again, a decision I was not prepared to make. Luckily I did not have to.
3 Days later he was doing much better. I PM'd Josh and Morgan to let them know what was going on and that things had taken a turn for the better. I then headed home to receive an IV infusion for Crohn's disease. While there I asked the doctor how long I needed to stay out of the hospital since the drug I get supresses the immune system and he said 3-4 days. He moved to a regular room for 2 days and then to an in-patient rehab center on the 3rd day. My phone rang at 4:30 in the morning. It was my brother telling me they were rushing Dad to the hospital for emergency surgery. He had developed another clot, this time in his left arm.
I was on a plane 5 hours later and sitting at my dad's bedside in ICU by noon. Luckily they caught this clot early and were able to remove it. It was actually two 3" clots, one in his upper arm and one in his lower. He was in ICU for a week this time, then in a regular room for 4 days and is now back in an in-patient rehabilitation center. Things are looking good now. He is back on blood thinners and the vascular surgeon told us yesterday that he expects a full recovery and he should be home in a couple of weeks.
One last thing, I wanted to thank a few people. Josh and Morgan for being the incredible and understanding people that they are. Ken (Chunkylover77) for being a great friend by being there for me and making sure that while my head was spinning that Josh and Morgan knew what was going on. And last, but certainly not least, Jjmorris. Someone I don't know very well and have never met in person that just happened to notice I had not been on much lately and sent me a PM to check on me. You will never know how much that meant to me.
Sorry this was so long but my family has been through a lot these last few weeks. I will try and read as much as I can this weekend to get caught up while I try to catch up on missing 3 weeks of work too, so please bear with me a little longer and I will be back to normal, thankfully, just like my Dad.
It started with my Father being diagnosed with bladder cancer. He, along with the rest of my family, lives in New York while I am in North Carolina. Luckily they had caught it very early and they were going to be able to scrape a layer of the interior of his bladder through a catheter to remove it. I asked if I should come up and he assured me that the doctors said this was caught really early and he would be back on his feet in a couple of days and that my brother and sister would be able to handle it. The surgery went well, but a couple of days after it he noticed his left foot was a slightly different color than his right. A week prior to the surgery he was taken off of the blood thinners that he has taken since he had a stroke almost 10 years ago and he immediately knew what was wrong. He called my sister to take him to the emergency room. She called me at 3:30pm to tell me what was happening and I was on a plane and in the hospital in 5 hours.
When I arrived my Father was in surgery for a 7" blood clot in his left leg. They inserted a sheath in his right hip going across his body to his right leg pumping him full of heperin (a blood thinner) and a catheter starting at his left arm leading to his left leg with TPA (a clot buster). They had pumped him so full of fluids that he was in congestive heart failure but because of the sheath in his hip he had to stay flat on his back which made it nearly impossible for him to breathe. They came out and asked for help with him because he was so agitated he kept knocking the mask off so I went in to try and calm him. I was greeted by a site the will haunt me forever. My Father with 8 IV's going, his left leg almost completely black from lack of blood, nurses struggling to keep him from pushing the oxygen mask off and a look of complete terror in his eyes. I was unable to calm him as he begged me to take the mask off of him and just take him home. The doctor then asked me (the youngest by the way) to make the decision to either strap him down to the bed or chemically induce a coma and put him on a tube to breathe. I chose to have him strapped down...it was not a decision I was prepared to make.
We were then told by the doctors that we should prepare ourselves to make a decision on removing his leg as there was only about a 30% chance this would work with the blockage he has. Again, a decision I was not prepared to make. Luckily I did not have to.
3 Days later he was doing much better. I PM'd Josh and Morgan to let them know what was going on and that things had taken a turn for the better. I then headed home to receive an IV infusion for Crohn's disease. While there I asked the doctor how long I needed to stay out of the hospital since the drug I get supresses the immune system and he said 3-4 days. He moved to a regular room for 2 days and then to an in-patient rehab center on the 3rd day. My phone rang at 4:30 in the morning. It was my brother telling me they were rushing Dad to the hospital for emergency surgery. He had developed another clot, this time in his left arm.
I was on a plane 5 hours later and sitting at my dad's bedside in ICU by noon. Luckily they caught this clot early and were able to remove it. It was actually two 3" clots, one in his upper arm and one in his lower. He was in ICU for a week this time, then in a regular room for 4 days and is now back in an in-patient rehabilitation center. Things are looking good now. He is back on blood thinners and the vascular surgeon told us yesterday that he expects a full recovery and he should be home in a couple of weeks.
One last thing, I wanted to thank a few people. Josh and Morgan for being the incredible and understanding people that they are. Ken (Chunkylover77) for being a great friend by being there for me and making sure that while my head was spinning that Josh and Morgan knew what was going on. And last, but certainly not least, Jjmorris. Someone I don't know very well and have never met in person that just happened to notice I had not been on much lately and sent me a PM to check on me. You will never know how much that meant to me.
Sorry this was so long but my family has been through a lot these last few weeks. I will try and read as much as I can this weekend to get caught up while I try to catch up on missing 3 weeks of work too, so please bear with me a little longer and I will be back to normal, thankfully, just like my Dad.
