For those of you who have not heard, my father is in the hospital.
I have a clearer picture of events that happened. I hope you don't mind but I will cc this email to the others.
Dad had been at home alone. He had his shower. He had changed his clothes. He had put a load of laundry in.
He started feeling dizzy or light headed so he thought he would lay down for a bit. As he was already in the basement for laundry, he just went to the long couch. He woke up in pain and knew something was terribly wrong. He crawled to the phone and called 911.
When we got home, we were able to follow the course of events ourselves. The boxes and papers on the end of the coffee table, where he would have gotten up, were all over the floor. The cordless phone was in the bathroom. Nitro was in the bathroom. The stickers they put on your chest for those reading were on the bathroom floor and living room floor. Likely he grabbed the phone, dialed and went to the bathroom to be sick.
He called 911 and was too weak to open the door. The police came and they broke into the window of the big bedroom downstairs. They did not have to shatter the window. Only the screen was out of place and some boxes below the window were tipped. The police raced to the door and opened it for the paramedics. At this time we believe the paramedics found him in the bathroom and moved him to the living room.
During this time, he was conscious enough either on the phone with 911 or while they were in the house to say that there were cats and to make sure not to let them outside.
Mom was working nights when she got the call. It was 2 pm and she had not had her "am dinner" yet. She had not even had a break. The nurse at the Grey Nuns Hospital said, "I think you should come now," so mom dropped everything and took a taxi over there leaving her car at the U of A.
Once she reached the ER, she found him. She thought that he was dead. His face was white. We now know that he had an abdominal aortic aneurism. When you are speaking to her, she will use her medical lingo and call it a "triple A." He had bled 5 liters of blood into his stomach. If he had not been able to call 911, he would have died in the basement.
They took him into surgery and told mom he had a 50/50 chance at surviving this. The artery affecting him is dangerously close to the renal artery. If they clamped that one while clamping the affected on, he would have lost the use of his kidneys. It appears that they did their job well. His kidneys are fine.
When he came out of surgery the doctor say, "The easy part is over." We need to wait 48 hours to see if he will pull through or not. He has all sorts of tubes going in and out of him. Walking into that room was a very hard thing for me to see. He was in and out of consciousness. He was highly sedated. He wanted to talk but he had a tube down his throat pumping oxygen into him.
Mom had called Auntie Cathy and Uncle Ernie. I arrived at 2 Saskatchewan time and they arrived two hours later. Cheryl arrived at ten at night and we went back over there. By this time they had removed his breathing tube. His voice was different probably because of the rawness from the tube being down his throat. Cheryl and I couldn't go in for the first 10 or 15 minutes. They were suctioning him out and he was puking. The noises were just too much for us. Ironically, I gagged more than my pregnant sister.
Now that his breathing tube was out, he was able to talk more. He is annoyed that he is in the hospital. He was having trouble breathing without the tube so those poor nurses had to move him to this position and that position. He has a suction wand at his disposal for those random sucks (insert dry heave here). His face is a different shape with all those things on him. He now has an oxygen tube just under his nose and he is still having trouble breathing somewhat. We left him for the night at about 1am Saskatchewan time.
We will go back again this morning.
Thanks for your thoughts and your prayers.
