Cultivate Patience

I hope all are enjoying the Christmas season. John and I enjoyed hosting my older sister, her hubby and my parents. All are well and arrived safely back at their respective homes. Mom and Dad are both on the mend. Dad had a follow up yesterday and had his staples removed. Mom is feeling much better since her bout with pneumonia. John and I even visited some of the Cooks yesterday, it was nice to see the “Cookies” (nieces and nephews) and distribute their Christmas books, yes we’re the Aunt and Uncle who give books. Good distraction and a blessing to see some of both sides of our families for the holidays.

In other news, no baby yet. So, it looks like I will be at church tomorrow.  We are celebrating a service of lessons and carols at 11:00am. Looking forward to getting it sing lots of the Christmas hymns and sitting in the congregation with John.

To reduce questions and texts about baby news:
Midwife and I are surprised that I'm not following any family history of "going early."  That's pretty unusual. Also, it looks like JTC may miss his window of being a home birth baby. John and I are sad but working hard at adapting. It's really out of our hands. So, we wait. As Lea Weed told me, ‘every minute we’re one minute closer.’

PS.  For my sanity: We've tried everything to induce labor and I really do not want any more advice. I'm tired. Thank you in advance.

DPS. JTC's due date is January 6, but all involved (me, John and medical peeps) want him to come earlier because he is potentially a big guy. But, he's not late, yet.

One last thing: We will let you know when JTC finally arrives. A church email will go out right away and I will share at some point on the blog, though not probably not immediately. I’ll be a little busy and John doesn’t do the blog.

Cultivate praise reports

Sorry this is a day late, but Dad was discharged from the hospital yesterday! All the doctors signed off and amazingly he was discharged to go home. He will have to go out for PT, but doesn’t need to go stay in a rehab facility. This is huge, and a testament to staying active throughout ones life. Dad was able to walk stairs, which was his test for going home to the condo (3rd floor no elevator). So, Mom and Dad are home, no trouble getting upstairs to the condo yesterday evening. Hopefully, both are resting. Mom has bronchitis so they both need to time to recouperate.  We are all truly grateful!

On baby news in SC, all is well. We had our midwife team appointment yesterday afternoon and are approved for birth whenever Jimmy T wants to come. No more resting with my feet up, so I am baking and walking and doing any last minute prep before baby comes. He’s measuring about 3 weeks ahead of his gestational age and is in the 98-100 percentile for his size. I guess we make big healthy babies. John’s hoping James T will be tall. John and I are ready, perhaps myself even more so, for him to be born! Mom/Mimi said the 15th is a good day. I told the baby that, now we wait and see. I’ll see you Sunday unless we have a newborn! Thank you again to our lay leader Steve and Coleman for being ready to roll Sunday if needed!

Pastor Meg

Cultivate Healing update #5

Tuesday afternoon update... (Mom’s text)

“Dad is doing great all day.  The Neurosurgeon's asst. removed his brain drain.  His headaches are well managed.  We brought him a half calzone and a meatball and some grapes and he ate the biggest meal he's eaten in 3-4 days.  A really good day. He seems himself. Tomorrow it is expected that they will try to get Dad out of bed and standing, maybe walking.”

Mom and Aunt Donna are very pleased with today, it was a boon after a pretty stressful day yesterday. Still praying and praising God!

Thank you!

Pastor Meg

Cultivate Healing (update #4)

Dear ones, if you want the whole story scroll back to the origin post about Dad, “Cultivate Healing” then read through the updates. This will give you the whole story.

Dad had a 2nd surgery today. The early morning scan showed no change and a physical assessment was not as good as Saturday following the initial surgery relieving the pressure. Dad said, “Everything will be fine,” and was making punny jokes with the nurses before they took him to the OR. The surgeon did end up doing then craniotomy (go big or go home) and feels he got most of ‘the massive blot clot.’ He did everything he could to mitigate the risks he took a long time to: clean the area (no infection), dry (no bleeding) and he also gave Dad an extra boost of anti seizure medicine. The next 24 hours are critical and how he wakes up. Mom is hoping to get to see him post-op around 3pm. I will update this post (#4) after we get more post operation information.

We are still optimistic. Aunt Donna and Uncle Al are with Mom and this is also good. Prayers are appreciated.

Update: 3 hours post op, Dad is aware and says he feels like he was “hit by a truck.” Despite a big headache he is aware. This is a big deal. All the nurses and Doctors are happy with Dad. Now we wait for more test results and eventually seeing if he can mobilize.

Cultivate Healing (Update #3)

Super quick Monday update. Dad had a setback Sunday. His blood pressure and CAT scan numbers are elevated .  Here's Mom's text:

Monday update #2... So here's the thing... Dad had so much blood clot from when he fell that it has overwhelmed his body's ability to reabsorb it. The burr holes surgery was very effective bc it allowed the broken down blood to "gush" out and Dr. T even had to introduce fluid into the cavity to push the air out. There is still a lot of old blood clot that is jelly-like and not broken down which his body is now trying to breakdown quickly into the introduced fluid. Hence his tiredness yesterday. Working overtime. We were given 3 treatment options and the option for a craniotomy (cutting out a flap if skull then putting it back with mending plates) on Wednesday was chosen. This will give Dad 3 days to see if his body will reabsorb the clot. If he doesn't have left arm and leg function heading back to normal on Tuesday we will go ahead with the surgery on Wednesday. Unlike burr holes, the surgeon will take off a piece of Dad's skull, be able to see everything and clean it all out. This option has the highest chance of resolving this issue. It also has higher risks, but it is not an uncommon procedure.

Cultivate Healing (Update #2)

Good news!! I'm going to keep this simple and share Mom's texts:

7:46am "Update...we just spoke with a different Neuro Surgery team member (nurse practitioner), the doctor and PA who did Dad's surgery are off this weekend. A different Neurosurgeon and this nurse practitioner will stop by later today to check in on Dad and we will be able to see the before and after CAT scans. She was able to tell us that the notes say that the surgery when extremely well, they were able to evacuate the old blood so well that a drain was deemed unnecessary! Dad is using his left have almost at 100%. I stopped at Dunkin Donuts and croissant/egg/bacon sandwich and an apple fritter. Motivation to move the hand!"

(Food backstory, after surgery Dad used his LEFT hand yesterday to grab for pineapple upside down cake on his tray to bring it close to himself to eat. Hooray for his sweet tooth and it was a huge boon for mom to see him do this, hence the fancy breakfast today!)

10:19am "PT and OT were just here together and they facilitated Dad getting HIMSELF out of bed, and walking a short walk in the wing here without a walker! Based on their assessment of his abilities this morning he will likely be able to return home. No rehab facility when discharged by the neuro team and the doctor. Yay! He will need follow-up PT," but this is great news. 

Discharge will be determined by the doctor, no plan/date in place yet. I'll do my best to keep you posted. Also, today is Mom and Dad's anniversary, what a great day for such good news.

~Meg

PT - Physical Therapy
OT - Occupational Therapy
NP - Nurse Practitioner
PA - Physicians Assistant

Cultivate Healing (Update #1)

Mom arrived at the hospital very early this morning (Thursday Dec. 6), to ensure she would be present for doctor's rounds and found Dad's room to be empty, cleaned and made up for a new patient...turning around to the 4-5 staff she said "Where is my husband!"  Yikes!  They quickly told her Dad was moved back to ICU/Trauma last night at 9pm after his CAT scan was read. He had a 25% increase in bleeding. Sounds scary, but he's ok. Moving back to ICU gives him more attention and the surgeon was in twice this morning. Initially, the staff didn't give him breakfast because they thought they might do surgery today...but the surgeon, after examining Dad, decided Dad was fine to wait until tomorrow morning.  Mom reported that the surgeon likes that Dad's condition "has not deteriorated and that his body is liquefying the congealed clot while we wait for the aspirin to clear out. The surgeon said it's good we waited." So, surgery should be early tomorrow morning (7:15am).  Dad's happy because he gets to eat AND more importantly we have a plan. Dad (like most of us) likes to know what the plan is.

The surgery.  Spoiler alert if you're squeamish about medical stuff skip this paragraph!  Mom reports that the surgeon will drill a burr hole and install one drain. After surgery, Dad will return to the ICU which is great because it's a 1:2 ratio (nurse:patient). The first 24-48 hours following surgery he will have to be flat in the bed. He will have a hole in the front of his head and hole in the back; basic physics, air in fluid out. Laying flat means it drains with gravity. The surgeon does not want Dad upright because fast draining could mean embolisms or air bubbles. So the first 24-48 hours Dad will really have to lay flat and behave. Prayers appreciated. Mom joked that they should tie his head down so he doesn't try to pick it up. I wondered about sedation. We shall see. After a few days they will remove the single drain and then we think he'll be able to move around a little. The surgeon may want to keep Dad a few more days beyond drain removal to observe him. Then Dad will have physical and occupational therapy and assess if he can go home or if he will need to go to a short term rehab facility to do therapy. It's not clear (for anyone in this situation) how quickly he will regain function in the left limbs/side sometimes it's quick and sometimes it's a few months. So, the steps after surgery are somewhat unknown...we have to see how Dad is doing after the first few days following surgery.

Prayers are appreciated. Thank you for reading my posts and not bombarding us with lots of questions. Again, I will do my best to keep everyone updated.

Meg

Cultivate Healing

Cultivate healing

So, it’s been awhile since my last post; and like the last post this essay is also about my family and health.  I am not with my folks, but I have permission to share this for friends, family and prayer warriors on the blog. 

Dad is in the hospital with a brain bleed (subdural hematoma). Mom though he had a stroke on Saturday, took him to the ER in their town. Thankfully, their local hospital is a stroke center, fortuitous. It was determined he actually was experiencing a slow, but significant, bleed in the brain. This bleed is most likely a result of a fall he had mid-November; Dad was dreaming about football and fell out of the bed; bumping his head in the adventure. From the local ER, Dad was transferred via ambulance to the larger city hospital about an hour away from home. Thankfully, this larger hospital is a ranked hospital for treating brain bleeds. He’s in the right place. 

Dad will be in the hospital for awhile, he took aspirin* before he and Mom went to the hospital; which we are waiting to get out of his system. (We learned it takes 5-7 days for aspirin to process out of the system.) The neurosurgeon is optimistic and thinks surgery will be perhaps Friday. Dad is experiencing left side weakness and coordination issues;  he is cognitively fine. In fact, after waiting in trauma 2 in the ER at the big hospital most of Saturday he demanded a room so he could watch the Ohio State football game, something we took as a good sign. The surgery is routine, though they will be drilling a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure. After this procedure he will need to lay flat and still for 2-3 days. Then, he will continue physical therapy (they have already started this before surgery). After surgery and the 2-3 days in the hospital, Dad may need to go to a rehab facility as Mom and Dad’s condo is on the 3rd floor, no elevator. Overall though, Mom says "it’s all good." Dad’s prognosis is pretty optimistic; relieving the pressure should result in normal function though it may take a few days to a few months to regain physical strength in the left side. 

Mom is a trooper and as a result of this “excitement” rescheduled her final breast cancer reconstruction surgery for mid February. She is understandably disappointed but as she is stable this is a logical choice. Hopefully, Dad will be more recovered by then, and I (or one of my aunts) might even be able to go and help. 

John and I continue to await the eminent arrival of baby James T’s; though, we hope he will wait until at least the end of his week 37, which would be December 16. The baby is healthy and measuring big. I’ve experienced some Braxton Hicks practice contractions and am consequently trying to take it easy and not be stressed (ha, ha)!  We are fortunate even in the midst of a difficult year for my family to have a blessing to celebrate. We are also grateful for the excitement and support of our church family around our son. 

I’ll keep you posted. Mom does not want this on Facebook, but I can share on the blog so check back once in awhile for posts. I’ll do my best. 

Thank you for your prayers! 

PS. Dad does not have a phone in his room. You can send cards to the condo, Mom is commuting back and forth to the hospital and she can carry any notes to him.