When they finally let us in to see Dad it was pretty hard. He was of course unconscious and looked like hell. He was strapped down the bed and had three or four IVs in as well as leads for monitoring his heart rate and BP. He was on life support so he had been intubated and the breathing tube was being held up by copious amounts of tape. everyone came in and said their I love yous ect. He had a long spiral of tubing stapled to his head which extended deep into his brain to allow the excess fluids to be pushed out by the pressure in his head. His head was twitching in time to his pulse because of the swelling. Neurosurgeons , pulmonary doctors and nurses came and went pretty frequently. Eventually they moved him from the ER to the ICU. They told us he would most likely be in the ICU for at least 2 weeks and in a regular room for an additional 3 , if he made it through the night. They did continue to caution us that even though he might be able to leave the hospital that he would still most likely need either some type of home care with a live in nurse or to be put into a nursing home. They continued to stress that he could go at any time and that stroke victims often take sudden drastic turns for the worse seemingly out of the blue. They told us his progress would be very slow and that we shouldn't be expecting true lucid awareness for months if at all and that even then his ability to remain lucid might be transitory.
That's all for now, more later.
-Jen
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