Mike Barrett Myron Barrett

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.


Dad had been fighting an upper respiratory infection for a few weeks. On Thursday, March 9 mom took him to urgent care. He went home assuming it was just that, an upper respiratory infection aka 'the crud'. On Friday he wasn't feeling any better. Actually, he was feeling worse. Mom insisted on taking him in again. They went to a different urgent care and he was sent directly to the Emergency Room. He was diagnosed with severe appendicitis. Late Friday night he went in for surgery to remove the appendix. A 2 hour surgery turned into several hours. Mom and dad are in Palm Springs for the winter......mom did very well with waiting by herself. I was in contact with her all night. The doctors were keeping her informed often. When they opened him up, the appendix had ruptured. Infection spread through his body. The appendix and part of the intestine were entwined with one another. They removed the appendix and part of the intestine. 1 kidney was not functioning and there was a lot of scar tissue from a previous hernia surgery. Things were touch and go, he was put on a ventilator and moved to ICU. He was critical but stable. David and I were in the process of checking into last minute airfare and figuring out what we should and could do from MN. He was stable all day on Saturday and they weaned him off the vent. His breathing was good and the vent was removed late Saturday. Kidney was functioning again (other than previous kidney disease). He was in ICU until late Monday night due to excessive heart rate. Monday night he was moved to a regular room. Mom is doing well considering the circumstances and did not leave his side until he was out of ICU. She is able to get herself to and from the hospital and finally got a good nights rest. Dad is in a lot of pain and will have a very long difficult recovery. As of today, David and I have not made any plans to go out there. They are going to need us as soon as he is able to travel. We need to get them home first and foremost and then we will need to get their car and their belongings back to MN. 


I'm sorry for the long 'story' but we didn't decide to put this on Caring Bridge until now. Mom needs to rest and take care of herself during this trying time and we are hoping this helps minimize all the phone calls she feels she needs to make to keep everyone informed. We appreciate everyone understanding the request to refrain from calling her. We need to keep her healthy! We ask for prayers for dads recovery and moms strength and health.


We will continue to update daily. One of the hard things is that they are 2 hours behind us and it's really testing our patience when we want an update each morning.