Journal entry by Kate Johansen —
The last weekend of September my dad took a fall at home after tripping. His back hurt but he was able to walk around, through the weekend his pain continued to increase. Towards the end of the weekend he started to lose the ability to stand and eventually lost sensation in his legs. Early Monday morning he was transported to Providence in Everett and it was discovered that he had broken vertebrae with a lot of other degeneration in his spinal cord. Due to the extreme condition that he was in, the neurosurgery team felt that surgery was the best approach. A 7 hour surgery was performed to fuse his spine a couple of days later and that's where this story takes a turn...
Since surgery, he cannot sit or stand on his own. Even worse, he has slipped to a state of mind of incredible confusion and delirium. They have referred to his condition as dementia because that's how it presents but it's unsure if that is the case. There are rare cases where surgery/anesthesia can bring a very underlying condition to the surface. We have no reason to believe that he had any mental troubles prior to this. If you know my sister and I, you know that our mom (not married to my dad) was diagnosed with Lewy Body dementia at the age of 59. For the last 5 years she has lived in an adult family home as her condition continues to progress. It is absolutely shocking to have our dad in this condition. 16 days ago I left a normal 62 year old man at the ER. He was in pain but clear minded and full of the same wit and sarcasm that everyone loves him for. To add to the grief, we haven't seen him in person due to covid restrictions. We are working to get a special exception to visit but we just have to have confidence that his nurses and doctors are doing their very best. They update us multiple times a day and sometimes during his clear moments we get to talk to him.
He has his phone at the hospital and while he has know clue where he his, he still has the means to operate it and occasionally reach out to those in his phone book asking to be bailed out. If you are lucky enough to get one of these phone calls, just know that he safe and please try to have a sense of humor about the alternate universe that he currently resides in.
My sister and I are obviously very overwhelmed right now. Fortunately but unfortunately we have been through this before and have always been a united front, with very dark humor to keep our spirits up. Our dad raised us pretty much on his own. It's pretty devastating to see the strongest, smartest man in the world in the shape that he is in. He raised us to have a lot of fight within and I know that he has it within himself.
I wasn't sure about sharing this as we continue to hope that this just a temporary thing. We have to believe that he will pull through this and that the doctors will get insight into what has caused such an incredibly drastic change. From an emotional standpoint its really hard to grieve, but pray, but also prepare that this could be our reality going forward.
We will continue to update this page for friends and family. The hard part is that the only update we have right now is that we just don't know anything.
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