All's Well

Surgery went well, and Dad made it back to his room. He was nauseous, but so happy he could talk. Thanks to everyone for the prayers.

Out

I don't know how it went, but it's finished and he's been in recovery since ~2:30. Dr. Duke was going to go in a cauterize some more of the area around the fistulas which is probably why it took a little longer. That's just speculation... maybe it was always going to take a few hours. Mom's heard that he should be back in the room in 30 minutes.

Surgery #96

Dad will go to surgery today at 11. Keep him in your prayers, and I update later when he's out.

Waiting

THe waiting continues.  The surgery to close the trach area is finally set.  It will be done Thursday at 11.  Dad will stay at least until Friday (hopefully not any longer).  He's tired of being there, but glad that a plan is finally in place.  This hospital is kind of like a jail cell... it's a lot easier to get in than to get out.  :)

Moved to the Floor

Well this stay has turned out to be a little longer than we hoped. He's moved out of IMU and back to Jones 6.  The room is pretty small, but again we're hoping for a pretty short stay.  Duke did a bedside procedure the other day to cauterize some vessels around the fistulas, and the bleeding has completely stopped.  At this point they are trying have the trach surgery done while he's there.  The area where the trach formerly was is scheduled to be closed on 3/31.  This procedure will be done at Hermann and require an overnight stay. Now that the bleeding is no longer causing concern, it would be nice to just have this done and not have to return anytime soon.  Hopefully it will all work out.

Very Brief Update

Some tests were run yesterday and the source of the bleeding could not be found. However the bleeding did stop or at least slow considerably. Today they will try again to find the source. If he is not actively bleeding today it will make it difficult to find where he once was bleeding. The IMU stay doesn't seem so bad; hopefully it will be a short one. :) Thank you all for your prayers.

ENT turns into IMU

Louie went back to Houston to his ENT follow-up appointment.  The last procedure went well and they've scheduled the trach hole to be closed in another surgery (03/31/2010).  This will require an overnight stay, but sounds fairly simple.

That brings us to the here and now.  Louie has had some bleeding from the abdomen area that started this morning.  After his ENT visit he headed to the Hermann ER where Dr. Duke was paged.  Dr. Duke has put him in IMU to run some tests.  I don't believe this to be too alarming, but he needs to find the source of the bleeding and ultimately make it stop.  I'll try to post an update when I know a little more.  If anyone still reads this, send a short prayer up for him this afternoon.