Aaron, my parents, and I had to leave Palermo for Sacramento at 3:30 in the morning. They prepped my Dad for surgery and we got to meet his doctor and send him off. You could tell my Dad was nervous but at this point it was really the only option to prolong his life. I still remember him grabbing Aaron's hand as he was being wheeled away. It was like he was pleading with us, wishing he didn't have to do it.
His surgery went as planned. It was on November 3rd. The doctor was coming out and telling us everything was great and then he got a phone call from surgery and the code blue came on the speaker. As the doctor had been talking to us the surgical team was getting him set up in ICU. They went to move him to the ICU bed and his heart stopped. The doctor ran back in. Did CPR. Couldn't get his heart started and so they opened his chest back up and massaged his heart and then it started again. SCARY!!!!!
They got him situated but they left us hanging not knowing what was happening for another hour and a half. The doctor met with us in a room and let us know what had happened. That his chest was still open because of his lung pressure. They also informed us he would be kept in a medically induced coma for now. And that we could see him in a few minutes.
We went in and saw him and it was just really awful. He looked really gray. And really sick. You couldn't see into his chest cavity because it was covered but it was still open. His body was still being re-heated from the surgery. We could only see him for a few minutes and so then we headed out for the evening. It had been a really really long day. My mom and I stayed the night in Sacramento and Aaron headed back to Chico.
The whole week of surgery kind of all blurs together but it seemed like all we got was bad news. His heart was struggling, his lungs were really struggling, his kidneys were not wanting to work correctly. It was really really stressful and really really emotional.
Luckily we got to visit some really cute kids to try and take our mind off of the fact that our Dad was in a hospital literally fighting for his life.
On Thursday my mom and I decided to go back to Palermo to sleep. We couldn't do anything at the hospital. He wasn't awake and we couldn't be in the room very long. We spent Friday doing yard work and cleaning and then headed to Sacramento for a visit. I remember walking into the room and being like why is my dad so huge. His body had rejected a medicine and he had 40lbs of water on his body as a result. He looked so so sick. That made it even harder to see him.
Originally I had planned on heading back to Utah on Friday but because of the situation I stayed in town until Sunday, as long as I could. I was just hoping they would wake him up before I went home. In the end it didn't happen. They did close his chest on Friday. Which was goos and bad. Bad because they accidentally pulled out his ventilator and trach tube at the same time and his heart stopped again. WHAT THE HECK! But they got it going again. Saturday night I said an emotional good bye not really knowing if I would ever see my Dad alive again. It SUCKED!!!! I left my mom Sunday morning and was grateful I only had Moki in the car with me. I could think and cry as much as I needed to.
The next week I am amazed I got through work. I was so exhausted emotionally and physically. I don't think I did much else because I was so sad. Nothing really changed until the end of the second week and my Dad slowly started to open his eyes. He was still really unresponsive but there was life in there! I learned that anesthesia is really just lots and lots of pain medicine. As they weened him off the pain medicine he slowly started to wake up.
On Monday November 16th we had another scare. His heart stopped in the early morning. They got it going again but for a while it didn't look too great. He got a priesthood blessing, lots of prayers and fasting, and he made it through the day. They think they just weaned him off of his heart medicine too fast. Unfortunately they had to give him more medicine so that meant more coma time for him. After that Monday he slowly started to improve. I Facetimed with my Aunt Virginia while she was with him and he smiled and nodded his head. He was slowly starting to progress.
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