Darin's Dad

You all know that Darin's dad had a stroke back in January. Around that time, they found a tumor on one of his heart valves. They decided at the time that it was inoperable. He was there for about a month, and was miserable the entire time. Some of the time, they had to strap him down to keep him from pulling at all the new attachments they gave him. They also had him on morphine for a while, and that made him quite loopy. I remember once when we were visiting, he pointed at Darin and said, "What's that?" Darin said "That's me!" (When I hurt my arm, they offered me morphine, but after seeing Darin's dad on it, I quickly said no). He's been declining every since, and matches his mom with the oxygen tank now. And he frequently reminds us of his "28 days of hell" in the hospital.

Yesterday he ate breakfast and seemed just fine, but by noon he had the shakes and a fever of 105 degrees. Darin's niece took them to the hospital where they determined he had pneumonia, and they kept him overnight.

By the time we got there today, he seemed much better. And just as crotchety as usual. He and the nurse enjoyed razzing each other all day. We'd only been there about a half hour when a doctor popped his head in and frankly told us that he had a bacteria infection in his bloodstream, and on his heart valve about 2 inches long, and that the only way to get rid of it was to do open heart surgery and remove it. If he didn't, he would die. The doctor said it was either staff or strep, both pretty serious. The surgeons are going to do some tests and discuss all the options with him tomorrow. There is a slight possibility that they might choose to put him on antibiotics for 6 weeks, but this doesn't seem as likely.

Darin's dad is pretty depressed about it all, and very scared. He was given 90% chance of making it through the surgery, but he had talked about not bothering with the surgery, and just dying. Darin told him that he had been given an 80% chance of living, and that his dad's odds were even better. I don't know if that made a difference.

They moved him by ambulance to the new hospital in Murry because they have doctors there that specialize in heart and lungs. The first thing Darin's dad did when he got there was inform a young doctor that he didn't want to go through a repeat of his last hospital stay and that he'd rather die.

That doctor was quite amusing to me and Darin. She was very young, probably just out of school. She kept throwing out big words and phrases so fast that we couldn't understand her, and I think it made her feel important that an old man with two hearing aids kept asking her to repeat herself when she used those big words. To use a term from my area of expertise, she needed some work on her Comprehensible Input!

Anyway, he could use prayers of anyone who's able to. And we will fast for him this Sunday, so anyone who wants to can fast, too.

UPDATE 7/27/08: The doctors determined that surgery is too risky, due to his poor health, so they are going to put him on some very strong antibiotics.