23 Days and Counting

In less then four weeks my life has done a 180 and now I’m thankful for it! I’ll explain.

Four weeks ago I was so happy and content. My life was going smoothly and I was feeling better then I had in a long time. I had been working hard to loose some weight so I had been eating well and exercising everyday! I was happy in the Lord and reading my Bible, as well as getting excited about volunteering for children’s ministry and AWANA. Then on August 4^th after checking up on my Dad I found him in critical condition.

The morning of August 4^th was all about me and by bedtime it was all about Dad. During the next several weeks there would be little to no Stacey time and lots of Dad and Heavenly Dad time. God has changed the direction of my life and I’m so thankful that He has helped me see past myself and is teaching me more about seeing the need in others.

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Here is the latest on Dad.

Swallowing –
He saw a speech pathologist last week and he has some impairment on his swallowing. They have taken him off of the TPN. They began tube feeding him as well as giving him thick liquids three times a day. He has begun slowly eating things like jello and other liquid substances thickened with nectar juice. He doesn’t eat much but each meal he has a few bites and that will help in a big way. They will continue to monitor his swallowing and we are praying he will eventually regain his ability to eat proper foods. In the meantime, it is just day by day.

Mental State –
They did another CT scan today and the results show he has cortical atrophy. This is shrinkage of the cerebral cortex. It is actually common in the elderly and can cause confusion, disorientation, memory loss and vision problems. I haven’t looked into this much so I don’t know much about it yet. He didn’t say the shrinkage was great but just that there was some. This could be one factor in his mental state. As I have stated before, the infection in his body, his liver condition and the fact he is in the hospital can all contribute to it. This is also a day by day thing.

With his mental state he also pulls on things and tries to get out of bed. They have had to loosely restrain his arms so he can’t touch each arm with the other or his face. I hate having to see him not having free reign of his arms but the other day he fell on the floor, pulled out his pick tube (IV) and his feeding tube. We had to go with the lesser of two evils – the restraints.

Pneumonia –
Praise God! His pneumonia is significantly better at this time. The bad news is that this doesn’t mean it will completely clear up or not get worse again. Since he has swallowing difficulties he could aspirate on his own saliva which in turn can just create a cycle that keeps inducing his pneumonia. He is on an antibiotic and it seems to be dealing with it very well.

Ascites –
Do you remember me discussing this in my previous letter? They drained one liter of fluid from his abdomen last Friday. This fluid did have infection in it but there was no sign of cancer! They have left a tube in his abdomen to keep draining the ascites. They have also started him on an intravenous antibiotic and will treat it for the next 7 – 10 days. Then he will be given an oral antibiotic that he will most likely need to take daily for the rest of his life because of his liver. The infection is due to the fluids weeping from his liver. The doctor told me that our digestive tract is full of bacteria and when it gets into our abdomen cavity it thrives in that environment. Please pray that Dad will not pull his tubes out.

Lesion on Heart –
They found a lesion on his heart during a scan. They haven’t been able to run any tests at this time. They don’t know what it is but seem to not be concern with it at this time. All in due time. They won’t speculate but some possibilities are cancer, signs of congestive heart failure or infection. Let’s not speculate but keep this in our prayers!

Liver –
Still no new news. They have yet to meet with the liver specialist and won’t make any assumptions. However, the doctor did talk about the possibility of moving him to KU Medical Center if and when they exhaust all their resources to help him. I’ll let you know more when I know more.

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Thank you, thank you, thank you for your prayers! God has been so faithful and I’m so blessed to have, once again, felt His sustaining power and grace!

Love Stac