12/30/2011

8:00

My dad is in the hospital. They have no idea what is wrong.

He was having problems with low blood pressure yesterday when I was visiting. He had chest pains last night so at 2am my mom took him to their local hospital – who transported him down to one where I live.

His blood work shows proteins that should only be in his heart are in his blood. At 8:30 he is going to go in for what my mother said was angioplasty, but then described it as putting a camera in one of his veins – I don’t think she is doing well. She also told me they were at RCC, which is the local community college, not the hospital – which is RVMC.

This was my wake up call this morning after night of not doing well and little sleep. I’ve managed to swallow most of the fear right now – it’s been mostly shock as I started doing research to understand possible options.

My father has been on blood thinners for awhile because he has thick blood and an aneurysm in his heart – which I only found out about last year, Apparently he’s had it for years and was on blood thinners to keep it from bursting.

My mom let me know she called my brother and told him first; he has to go into work today and she told him not to cancel since he needs the hours and the money. She told him to call me for up-dates and that she’ll call me when she is not back in the CCU since she can’t have her phone on in there.

A bit ago my brain kicked over to their dogs and I am tempted to call and ask if she wants me to go up and take care of them until they get home. But I don’t want to be 40 miles away from the hospital right now. Right now I am less then 7 miles – a 10 minutes drive with traffic lights, or a bit longer if I take the back roads to get there from my house.

I’m having a harder time swallowing the panic the more I wake up and think.

9:20

Well the doctors found nothing – there was a little thing they saw, but it was so minor it would not be causing this; it would cause more harm than good to try surgery for whatever it is. My dad’s blood pressure has gone back up, but is still going up above where it should be, and he is still in pain.

They’re doing a sonogram on his heart and my mom mentioned some other procedure if they find nothing on that.

At least I don’t have to go take care of the dogs right now; my mother ran home and took care of them as they were transporting my father down to RVMC in an ambulance this morning. I might need to later – still don’t want to be that far from the hospital right now.

There were errands I wanted to do today over near the hospital any ways. I’m going to go buy my mom real coffee and go see her for a bit.