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Those of you who know me fairly well are aware by now that my Dad has suffered a massive stroke. I have been spending the majority of my time in the hospital with him since it happened ( last Saturday). He is very ill. A lot of you have been asking me how he is on a daily basis either through my Gaia account or by e-mail and where as I appreciate your kind thoughts and wishes I simply do not have the time or the emotional capacity to update everyone daily. I will try to update my journal about once a week to answer any questions and keep you all updated.

Here is the story so far:

On Saturday November 28, my father had a massive hemorrhagic stroke. That morning he woke up feeling a little headachey but otherwise fine. That headache soon grew and he began vomiting, he thought it was food poisoning. My step-mom took him to a walk-in clinic. The doctor there looked him over listed his symptoms as vomiting , severe headache and a BP of 186/100. He decided that it was a stomach virus and sent dad home with some anti-nausea meds and codeine for the headache. At 4pm dad took his meds and went to bed. At 7:30 my step mom checked on him and he was lying face down on the floor in his bedroom , turning blue, foaming at the mouth and unresponsive. She called 911, and ambulance took him to a hospital that specializes in strokes. By the time we all got there (My step-mom, my mom, my brothers and myself) Dad had been there for an hour and a half. The nurses took us to a private waiting room in the back of the ER. When the ER doctor came in she told us that they didn't think Dad was going to make it through the next 12-24 hours. He was still unresponsive and had been put on life-support. They had also done a CT scan and had drilled a small hole into his skull through which they inserted a catheter the allow the pressure in his brain top push out some of the excess blood and spinal fluid that was accumulating. She (the doctor) told us that we needed to start thinking about whether or not Dad would want to have to live on life-support for the rest of his life and weather or not we wanted to sign a DNR (do not resuscitate order). She left and after everyone had spent about a half hour crying and freaking out and absorbing the shock of it all the neurosurgeon came in, he told us more of the same. He also told us that if it were his dad or himself in dad's position that he would want to be let go because the chance of recovery if dad had a heart attack on top of what he was already going through was so slim. He told us that Dad had less than a 50% chance of survival and that we would most likely lose him in the next 12-24 hours. He said that if Dad did survive that there was only a 10% chance that he would ever be able to go home and lead a normal life and that he would most likely have to live in a nursing home or other assisted living type of situation. He explain the difference between the different types of strokes to us and explained that dad's stroke is inoperable because the bleeding is so deep in the brain ( in the very center in fact) that if they were to cut the brain open to get to the blood that they would end up destroying his brain in the process. He showed us the CT scan, and it was awful. I've seen a lot of CTs but I have never seen one that was anything like that , there was more blood on the CT than there was brain. The largest clot was roughly the size of a tennis ball and was in the very center of his brain, there were about 7 others that ranged in size from a small dime sized on on his brain stem to some that were the size of half-dollars, they were on both sides of his brain and all very deep. Because of the amount of excess blood and spinal fluid in his head his brain was very swollen. Usually when you look at a CT there is a thin black halo that surrounds the brain beneath the skull, Dad's CT had no halo because his brain was being pushed so tightly against his skull, in fact his brain was so swollen on the right side that the swelling had pushed his brainstem completely into the left side of his head. All I could think when I was looking at it was , how the hell is he even still alive?



All right that's all for now, it's hard to type this out (emotionally) and I need to go shower and get to the hospital, I will try to write more later on tonight if I am not too tired. Thanks everyone for your well wishes and good thoughts.


-Jen