Dear Friends and Family, Welcome to our CaringBridge website for Dad. We are using this webpage to keep family and friends updated with Dad's journey. We will add a new entry at the end of each week after we process the week's events ourselves. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. We will read your messages to him daily. We notice that your loving words and messages really help keep his spirits up. We are so grateful for you.
It has been and eventful past few weeks with a positive COVID 19 test result the first week of January, the second week of January a 911 call followed by admission to Meadville Medical Center, up and down from 15 to 30 liters of oxygen through a rebreather mask threatening intubation, a dip into the ICU due to a pneumothorax which miraculously cleared on its own, and a discovered popliteal aneurysm in his left leg which they concluded had been for a while.
This past week, he came out of the ICU successfully! Midweek, the doctors came to the conclusion that his leg aneurysm is beyond repair and that a left below knee amputation is unavoidable. He was also diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia requiring a 7-day course of antibiotics. During that 7-day period we are hoping for him to fully come off oxygen which would allow him time to prepare for the left below knee amputation. The week ended with Dave, my brother, and I meeting with the vascular surgeon charting our path forward. After the surgery, with successful healing and recovery, he can then go to acute rehabilitation and eventually be fitted for a prosthetic. As of today, he is on 2 liters of oxygen, and we are grateful his lungs seem to be healing and exchanging oxygen.
As of now, he is eating well and getting rest, he loves when we hold his hand, and he loves talking and joking around!! His twin brother Sam traveled from sunny Florida to 13-degree weather to celebrate their 82nd birthday together, yesterday the 28th. Today, we are all enjoying family visits and most importantly we were able to arrange for Joann to come and have a special visit with him. We are hoping for stabilization of his oxygen instead of the daily fluctuations. The hospital staff is incredibly attentive and truly amazing at what they do. They are projecting to begin physical therapy next week with Dad.
We will send a weekly update each Sunday. While we appreciate all the inquires and have felt very uplifted by the love, we wanted to streamline the communication to this web page where we create an online community that will undoubtedly envelope and uplift Dad (and us!). The weekly updates allow us to focus our positive energy on his daily care, his needs, and our preparation with all the knowns and unknowns in the weeks ahead. We are aware this will be a slow and steady process and he will be in the hospital for months. Thank you for all the Love and Prayers... we see the resulting miracles with the air in his lungs miraculously clearing up and that he is now on 2 liters of oxygen from 30 liters!
