My dad's recovery--Week 2

An accidental trip brought me to LA again.

It was end of May and I was in China on a business trip when my second sister brought my parents on holiday in the US. On the morning of May 26, I got a call from my sister, telling me that our dad had a heart attack and a heart surgery was needed. Dire situation then, and I had to decide if I wanted to come over or not as my family understood I was on a biz trip.

But surely my dad weights more than my work in China. So, I went online and was fortunate enough to find a ticket from Shanghai to LA. So, within a matter of less than 6 hours since I got the call from my sister, this accidental trip started.

The problem turned out to be much more serious than I had expected. At first, doctor here thought an angioplasty would suffice but the examination showed main arteries in his heart were severely clogged. An open-heart surgery--Coronary Artery Bypass Graft, to be more precise, was needed. It wasn't a small one for my dad who's 80 and has diabetes. We discussed the possibility of sending him back to Taiwan but he's simply too ill to travel then. So, despite all the high risks (and also the high cost....), we decided to proceed with the surgery.

He had to wait for two weeks at intensive care unit for the surgery cause he was too weak. On the morning of Jun. 11, the surgery finally was undertaken. A good 5 hours of waiting in anxiety, I was told in early afternoon by the surgeon that it had gone well. They did three by-pass and that was the easy part of the surgery. They actually spent more time trying to stop his bleeding. He had been receiving blood thinner prior to the surgery so as to allow blood to flow more smoothly through his clogged arteries. But that made it hard for the blood to clog which is necessary to close the wound. Fortunately, the internal bleeding problem just subsides later.

Now, it's been two weeks into his post-surgery recovery. The first week he showed very good sign--staying clear-headed, starting to demand things/drinks, wanting to get out of bed---trivial things that indicated his gradual return to a normal life.

But things took a strange turn in the second week. He started to complain about chest pain, getting lethargic most of the time, and dehydration problem. His blood pressure dropped all of a sudden and kidney functions went bad on last Friday. So, the doctor sent him back to ICU, having him receive dialysis again (which he had received before the surgery). They suspect that the gradually worsening kidney function resulted in cumulation of toxin in his body. Hopefully the dialysis this weekend can make him better.

As one of the doctors put it, he is on the right track but with some deviations sometimes. I think that's quite true about my dad's situation now. He's still ill and weak, and no one has the slightest idea when he can be discharged from the hospital, not to mention the full recovery. But I should faith (well, I have to have) that he'll recover eventually. After all that he's been through, he just got to recover!

As for me, I've been in LA for one month. I have been fine albeit all the anxiety and frustration from time to time. I stay at a friend's and spend most of the time at the hospital. My eldest sister who lives in Dallas also came to LA to help. So, we take turns taking care of our dad who is anyway under very good care at this very nice hospital.

I will talk more about my life here in my next article. In the meantime, if u read this article, please send your prayer for my dad. That'll be very much appreciated. Also, please take good care of yourself too. Nothing is more important than your health....A lesson learned with high cost here now.....