The Anatomy of life support part 2

I left off on Monday night.

I could only stay in the ICU for no more than 30 mins. It was so hard to see this man who was always so strong and burly being completely sedated in a medical induced coma. The put him the coma to allow his body time to rest so that he might get stronger. It didn't work. By Tuesday morning the Doctor decided to stop all the sedative medication to see if he would wake up and come out of the coma.

He didn't wake up at all on Tuesday. My sister and I had a hard time just sitting there watching our dad waste away to nothing. As I said in my last post his belly was so incredibly swollen yet his face was a dull gray color and completely hollowed out looking.  We were staying at a hotel less than 5 minutes away from St. Mary's Hospital. At this point the Dr. said to not get excited because he was still a very sick man. They believed that he got pancreatitis which caused his gall bladder to fail causing his liver and entire digestive tract to fail.

When we went to see him again Tuesday afternoon we talked to the Dr and nurses and got permission for my 7 and 8 year old nephews to come in the ICU and see dad. I took them in 1 at a time. I started with the youngest Mark (named after my dad ). I held his hand while we walked into the ICU. His dad stayed with the other nephew and my sister was already in dad's room. I explained that grandpa was very sick and was going to look different. I explained the best I could that he had lots of tubes and machines and such in him and in the room. This boy is such a tuff kiddo. We walked into the room. I told Mark that grandpa was able to hear him and to just talk to him as normal as you can. He was strong and brave. I picked him up so he could give his "papa" a kiss on the forehead. I walked him out and brought Ethan in. I explained everything all over again. Something you should know about Ethan is that he and his papa were the best of buddies. He tried to talk to dad but was very nervous and scared just as I would be at his age. I had been so strong since I got to the hospital on Monday however, when Ethan was getting ready to leave I again picked him up to give papa a kiss. I was strong until this little tender 8 year old said the most sad and profound thin I have ever heard. He looked at my dad and said " goodbye papa I will see you when I get to heaven" I LOST IT! Wow what a special boy he is. I am actually crying right now as I type this and remember his small voice saying those tender words.

After that I was so emotionally exhausted and worn out. We all went back to our hotel and I sat in my empty hotel room by myself and had a good hard cry. We didn't go back to see him that day because they were going to be inserting a tube into his gall bladder to drain the infection. He needed surgery to remove it all together but he was too sick and unstable for surgery so this was the next best thing they could do to try and relieve the infection to hopefully bring him out of the coma. It didn't help him to wake up.

In the next post I will talk about the dialysis they said was the fix all but they were wrong. Until next time....