Update: Dad's been discharged from the hospital since this story was written - but still needs a lot of prayer even though he's back home at Arbor Terrace. He has good and bad days..... Thank you so much for continued prayers and support! _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
"I'm in pretty good condition for the condition I'm in." - Mr. Jay
Hi friends and family of Jay Bruhn a.k.a. Mr. Jay, Dad, Grandpa, Grumpa, etc.
Dad is 84 years young but, until some recent health battles, he could and did run circles around most of us. In fact, his nickname ,"Mr. Jay", comes from his volunteer job at West Park Baptist's Parents Day Out program where he has faithfully held the door for harried parents and greeted the students with high fives (well, changed to elbow-bumps in our post COVID-19 world) and helped with so much else there for years! Also, up until recently, he has been a pretty regular part time employee and CFO (Chief Fun Officer) at a local small business, Easy Vac. This time last year Dad and I were doing some hiking and even going on Jeep adventures together. However, over the past year-and-a-half, Dad has been through kidney stones and a lot of bladder problems and procedures including prostate surgery, heart failure, a couple falls, some blood and bone marrow abnormalities (plasma cell dyscrasia) causing anemia and problems with blood clotting. And, of course, all of this is happening during a pandemic keeping this man who loves people pretty isolated.
So after a couple hospital stays and feeling pretty weak on a lot of days, even with some home health and physical therapy, Dad decided it better to be surrounded by friends and community and live in a place that had nurses who could help with his medicines and new friends to help drive him to doctor's appointments and even to his volunteer job. So he's been at Arbor Terrace Assisted Living (a most amazing place) a few months now. Unfortunately, a couple weeks ago he had another bout of high blood pressure and congestive heart failure plus a lot more weakness and balance problems that landed him on the floor of his lovely apartment there and then in the hospital. And, to make things even harder, when Dad's blood pressure gets high - because of some vascular changes ("hardening of the arteries") to his brain - he has almost stroke like symptoms including severe loss of balance and leaning to one side, and extreme confusion and anxiety. So this led to some very long hard scary nights in the hospital lately while they were trying to get his blood pressure regulated. They treated the heart failure and blood pressure and got him feeling some better, but he's still pretty weak.....
So, although they discharged him from the cardiac unit of the hospital a little over a week ago, as I type this he remains in Fort Sander's Regional Medical Center's Transitional Care Unit (TCU) for physical therapy and strengthening before he can return to Arbor Terrace. I decided to start this site to keep his many wonderful friends and family members better informed. He has so many people that care about him and pray for him and we appreciate everyone more than words can say.
What can you do? -Keep those prayers coming! -Keep in touch with Mr. Jay! Although he gets pretty warn out from the daily physical therapy and may not call or text back, he loves reading your messages and hearing your voicemails. -Cards and such are very much appreciated and may be sent directly to Jay Bruhn, Room 924, TCU/Fort Sanders Regional Medical Center, 1901 W. Clinch Ave, Knoxville, TN 37916
-Please feel free to visit him in the hospital, but please be aware that very short and sweet visits are the best since he tires so easily right now. Also, because of high risk to their patient population, TCU has certain COVID-19 precautions in place. Visiting hours are from 10am - 7pm and all visitors must wear a mask, be screened for COVID-19, sign an agreement to follow all social distancing precautions and there may be no more than 2 visitors at a time in his room (924). Also, please keep in mind that they may further restrict visitors if COVID-19 cases continue to rise in our area. Additionally, Dad prefers that all of his visitors have their COVID-19 vaccine in addition to following all precautions because, although he is vaccinated, he has recently received chemotherapy to fight the plasma cell neoplasm and his immune system is in a weakened state. -Please feel free to share this site with others who know and love Jay so they can easily stay informed and send some love back as well.
I will try to give updates on here as often as possible and have also enabled a couple other family members as "authors" on this site so they can add updates as well. And as Dad feels a bit stronger, you may even hear directly from him as well.
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