Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Another bump in the road

It feels like we've been at this point before, but it's a little bit different every time.

The doctors said Dad is definitely aspirating again. This means food, water, and normal secretions he has been coughing up aren't always being swallowed properly. Instead, junk gets into his lungs and that leads to breathing difficulties that we saw yesterday.

They don't really know for sure why he can't swallow properly, but to prevent further problems he needs to get a tracheotomy. That will block anything from going down into lungs. Doing that procedure will take some time (tomorrow or the next day) to get the right doctors lined up and scheduled. In the mean time, they are going to intubate him again to protect his airway. We talked to him earlier today to make sure he was OK with that and he said it was. They are working on that now. He will be sedated again to make him more comfortable with the breathing tube and ventilator.

The goal is to get him healthy enough to recover from the recent problems.

-- Bob

4 comments:

  1. My heart hurts for him. :(
    I'm going to see if we can figure some way for us to get up there, even if we have to tag team to do it.

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  2. It seems like one step forward, two steps back.
    I feel for you all.

    Anne

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  3. Nikki and I are both praying. Thank you for the updates Bob.

    ~Kevin

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  4. Praying for all of you!!! Once we get past this surely it will be smooth sailing..God be with you!
    Lu

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