In August, Rob had been diagnosed with a significant mass in his bladder. He was supposed to have had a cystoscopy on Monday but… the hurricane devastation and damage to the area hospitals put that on hold.
On Tuesday morning, October 4, I took Rob to the Lee Memorial Emergency room with a high fever, infection and chills. After a very long and scary morning in the hurricane hit ER, they finally admitted him to a room at 2pm. Because of the hurricane damage to the hospital, no visitors were allowed, and I eventually got escorted back to my car.
Through the night, antibiotics controlled the infection, but his pain level increased considerably. With more tests, they discovered the bladder mass had grown enough that it was blocking the bladder. He was stable enough to be scheduled for a procedure to help alleviate the pressure on his kidneys and then get transferred to another hospital for a procedure to examine and/or remove some of the mass.
Around 3:45pm I got a call from the hospital that Rob had gone into cardiac arrest. His heart was stopped for 20 minutes before they got a pulse. He was transferred to critical care and put on life support. They found that a huge blood clot had gone to his lungs and stopped his heart, and he has another one in his leg. Fortunately, they were able to remove the one in the heart and put a filter in to stop the one in the leg from traveling. They believe the clots are the result of the bladder mass. It was at this point our Florida kids-Giana and Abbie, sister ML and I were allowed to finally see him. We were praying hard as everything was touch and go, minute by minute.
By the next morning, his vitals had stabilized a bit, our North Carolina kids were on the road, and I was able to meet the TEAM -10-20 doctors and others that were working to save his life. The machines are breathing for him and his organs were in shock. They lessened the sedation medication just a bit to let his body try to start to wake up and function on its own.
On Saturday, Robert, Aubree, Matt, and Henry arrived and they allowed us to see him in groups of 2 for 10 minutes each only. The kids sang and talked to him. Matt sang Beatles songs and Billy Joel. You know Rob loved that! While each of the sets of kids were there, Rob moved his leg in response!!! He knew they were there!! When we called later in the evening to check in and the nurse said she had just turned on classic rock radio while she was with him and he was responding to the music! She said they were rocking out together!! She also said that after the kids left, his vitals began to improve! That made our night!
We begged and begged for time to see him today, but they won’t let us back in because of the hurricane protocol. It’s just torture not to be by his side. We sat today and told Rob stories. I just love our big blended family of kids!
Hopefully tomorrow, the hospital will get water back and they’ll lift these restrictions before the the boys head back to NC tomorrow. They really need to see their Dad again. He needs us all to help remember & get better!
I’ll keep updating this post as I can. Needless to say we are all in shock. Please send all the good juju, healing light and prayer for Rob! We are so thankful to everyone who has come together to help us.
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