Well, Dad is settled in to his ICU bed. The have a PICC line in (to allow them to push medications, blood products, etc.), and have him stabilized. We were talking with the critical care doctor as he was reviewing the raw scans, and he came out to tell us that Dad's lung (both upper and lower lobe) was full of blood clots, in addition to a small one in his pulmonary artery. We also just got confirmation that he has a large clot in his left leg that's loose, but this one will be "caught" by the filters that they just put in yesterday if it stays "large." If it breaks off a bit at a time, the filters likely won't catch it. Not a good situation, so they want to keep him as still as possible so as to not disturb the clot at all.
This is about the worst possible news. Because he has a very recent history of a head bleed (and the CT confirmed just a small area of oozing still), he can NOT get treatment for blood clots. They treat it with heparin therapy, which is a blood thinner, and that's absolutely not going to happen with his brain in the state it's in.
For now, he's stable. We hope to keep him that way. Not treating him for blood clots is a really difficult thing to hear, but treating him is too risky. We now take things hour by hour.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
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3 comments:
Hi,
my name is Fran and I am Cindy's sister. We have not had the pleasure of meeting yet even though Mike and Cindy have been married for seventeen years! I always ask her how Roger is and they sent me your blog so I can keep updated. I just want you all to know how sorry we are that Roger and all of you are going through this. We know first hand what this is like and we just feel for you all. You are always in our thoughts and prayers. Franny Howell
Mary,
So sorry to hear this latest. Please know that we are thinking of you.
Andy and Katie
Mary:
Thank God you're there. I was so ticked to hear that "end of life care" had been written in Roger's chart. Am sooo glad Mayo's is weighing in on care. Prayers now are that blood clots dissolve and your dad gets stronger. We had such a good visit a couple weeks ago. I hope you can stay until things stabilize. He needs your advocacy. Thanks for all the updates and please tell him we're praying for a quick recovery from this setback. Bless you--Pat Wheeler
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