Saturday, October 13, 2007

Situation

I am in Kentucky to see Jackie. I have very little net access because I'm at the hospital or sleeping. Any posting I do will likely be from my phone, with the abbreviations and misspellings intact, so bear with me. I can't recall where I last picked up the story...

Jackie fell a week ago Wednesday when a board he was standing on at a construction site broke. He fell about 10 feet and had surgery on Friday to do a full hip replacement because it broke the ball off his left hip. The surgery went very well. But, he had a massive heart attack in recovery. He coded and they had to shock him multiple times. They weren't sure he would live through the night. But, he did and continued to improve. Until they tried to get him off the oxygen.

On Wednesday - I think - my days are confused - they discovered he has a leaky valve and will need open heart surgery. That is tentatively scheduled for Monday, depending on if the Plavix in his system is at a low enough level. They will remove the stent they put in last week for the 100% blockage and do a bypass there and also where he has the 60% blockage, in addition to fixing the leaky valve.

Amazingly, he says his hip doesn't even hurt. He has an incision about 4 inches long on the front of his hip and it's healing nicely. It's incredible they can cut us open, rearrange a major support structure of our bodies and we not be in pain five days later. But, so it is.

I came to KY late this week to be with him and help out - someone has stayed at the hospital around the clock since this happened. I've been staying at the hospital at night so Mary Ann can get rested up because I know she will want to be with him after he has the heart surgery.

I came home to shower today and sleep a bit and I'm headed back to the hospital (about 30 minutes away). He's in CCU, so we can only visit for brief times throughout the day, two at a time.

I was hoping to have wireless access in the waiting room, since a lot of what we do is wait, but no such luck. So, I have no real computer time. However, I may post from my phone with updates.

I was planning to be here Friday-Monday anyway because their 50th anniversary is on Monday and we had a party planned for Sunday afternoon. Now they'll be doing surgery on Monday instead of celebrating their anniversary.

If you're someone in my real life world, please refer people to the blog for updates or have people call my cell. I do not have everyone's emails with me and just don't have the energy to do a lot of texting. I'll try to update here whenever possible.

Your good thoughts and prayers are appreciated.