Stubborn and strong? What an understatement! This man accidentally shot himself in the hand while cleaning his gun, and rinsed it with cold water. He broke both of his wrists in a fall and went to bed, he didn't see a doctor for days. He suffered with pneumonia for weeks, he didn't "need" to go to the hospital! :) He was so strong willed and tough. That's why when he told me he thought he needed to go to the hospital, I knew it was serious. I put on my shoes, grabbed some pillows for the ride and we left.
We arrived at ABC Hospital between 9:00-10:00pm. We got back to see a nurse fairly quickly compared to most Emergency Rooms I’ve seen, but it was still far too long for the amount of visible pain he was in. The triage nurse just kept telling me, “We’ll get him back as soon as a bed opens up, I promise. He’s first on the list.” We understood, so we waited. My poor Dad, he spent most of the time trying to position himself in every way possible, to relieve some of the pain. Nothing worked. We waited for one-two hours. When we finally got back into a small room in the Emergency Department, we had to wait even longer. I believe it was closer to midnight or one o’clock by the time he had received any sort of pain medication. When they did get around to it, they gave him a cocktail of Dilaudid (for pain), Zofran (for nausea from other medications), a muscle relaxer, and an anti-inflammatory. They took my Dad to X-Ray shortly after that, and I was very disappointed when he returned and said the pain was still at more than a 10, on a scale of 1-10. I told the nurse and she had to consult with his doctor, and they agreed to up his medications to see if it helped. He then received a double dose of Dilaudid, and Zofran.
We kept waiting for the medications to work, but they never did. My Dad became “loopy”, but was still crying in agony. His doctor (Dr. W) came in shortly after his second round of medications and told us that during his X-Ray, she noticed an Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm. She told us she wanted to have a CT scan done to look into this further. Although my Father was still in extreme pain, he was too groggy to know what was happening at this point. They wheeled him away to do his CT scan, and they were gone for about 30 minutes. Again, I was hoping he would come back pain free, but no such luck. His pain was still unbearable and at this point, he was not tolerating it well. He was almost delirious from the pain and drugs combined. We waited awhile longer and his doctor came in to deliver the CT scan results. She said the aneurysm was measuring at 5.2cm and the good news was… It wasn’t inflamed, didn’t require immediate attention and “LOOKED OKAY!” Her peppy demeanor really eased our minds and let us sigh a breath of relief. She told us she was ordering a dose of steroids to help with what she said were “spasms” in his back. Dr. W and I stood beside my Dad’s bed as he cried out in pain, while his nurse administered the steroids. She said she thought he could manage this pain with at home, with the usage of the medications she had given him that night, despite the fact that they were, very obviously, not working at all. She told us she thought he could go home whenever he wanted. I shared my concern with her and told her his pain seemed very extreme to me, and that if a medicine as potent as Dilaudid did not work, why was she releasing him? She nodded her head in agreement and said “Let me talk to the Doctor upstairs about keeping him overnight for pain management. I’ll be back!” Again, her care-free, “He’s okay” attitude set my mind at ease. I had no idea that in just a few minutes, my Dad would be saying his last words to me.
After she left, my Dad quickly declined. I was holding him up on the edge of the bed, rubbing his back trying to ease his pain. He was bracing himself against me when I noticed he was pale, clammy, and sweating. He kept saying “I’m so hot, I’m so hot.” He started mumbling and moaning in a way that I had never heard before. I immediately started hitting the nurse/emergency call button, and also sent my younger brother Kole to get his nurse. All of a sudden, he went limp in my arms. I thought he was resting, but when I bent over and looked up at his face, his eyes were open, but unresponsive. I quickly laid him back onto his pillow and tried yelling at him. His eyes seemed to look straight through me, and his tongue rolled out of his mouth. The color of his skin turned a very pale, white-yellow color. I glanced up at the monitor, and he was dying. His pulse barely existed and is heart rate was very low. Nurses had STILL not arrived, so I ran out into the hallways, screaming “HELLO!!!” I saw my brother Kole and his nurse (whose name, I believe, was Jennifer) walking down the hallway. She said “Okay” and started jogging toward his room. When she got there, she paged his doctor and a team of other nurses and doctors followed. When Dr. W got there, I heard them say he barely had a pulse. Dr. W told us they would be taking him down the hall to a trauma room, but only because they needed extra space to work. She said they would come and get us as soon as they could.
They wheeled him out of the room a few minutes later, after talking to him for several minutes with absolutely no response. We waited for someone to come back to the room, but we ended up following the sound of our Dad’s groans and cries a few minutes later. When I entered the trauma room (on my own), my Dad was talking but wasn’t himself. He was telling them he had to use the restroom and he was fighting them very hard. He was in that trauma room for over an hour, most of the time, he was not sedated and was telling them he didn’t want his oxygen mask on. Why didn’t they sedate him immediately, so he could receive life saving treatment? They even went as far as to ask me if I could stand beside him and try to comfort him. I did what I could, and I told him "These people are trying to help you Dad, then I promise you can go to the bathroom. Please hold still." and I held his hand. He wasn't there though, he was so out of it, I don't even know if he knew who I was.
After watching for a while, the head of nurse’s staff took my brother and I to a conference room. She explained that they had no idea what was wrong with him, but they thought that the “okay-looking” aneurysm they had seen earlier, was now, "suddenly" leaking or had ruptured. After that, Dr. W came in and had a broken hearted look on her face. I can still see the look on her face, it told me my Dad was going to die. She explained to me what her theory was, (a leaking/ruptured aneurysm, even though their X-ray and CT scan showed it was perfectly fine) and then I spoke to another doctor, whose name I do not recall. When they told me they would be transporting him to XYZ Hospital, I told them I wanted to just leave now so I could meet him there. I had assumed that being flown by helicopter/mediflight meant he’d be there quickly. I was wrong.
Before I left the hospital, I saw my Dad one last time. He was now on a portable bed to be taken to the helicopter and he was no longer responsive. He had been sedated and intubated. He was undressed and covered with a pillow from the waist down. I couldn’t figure out why everyone seemed to be standing around, and why he was not on the helicopter already. I trusted them though, and I didn’t say anything. I figured there had to be a reason. I told them that since he appeared to be headed out the door, I would just get in the car and get to XYZ Hospital as quickly as I could. I wanted to be there as soon as possible, because I didn’t want him to be alone. I wanted to be there every step of the way. The staff was very nice and even printed directions for me. His nurse seemed very down, and very sympathetic. Before I left, Dr. W also came to me and hugged me tight. This was the first time I wondered, “Does she feel guilty?” but I was still so hopeful that my Dad would be okay, I didn’t give it a second thought.
When I arrived at XYZ almost exactly one hour later, he had still not arrived. I called the dispatcher for MediFlight and he told me that he was in the helicopter, but he had no communication with them at this time. So, we waited. A little while later, I went up to the front desk and asked the nurse to look up his name. He did, and he told me he had actually just been through the ER and was now in surgery. He said he would call their case worker down to meet with us and she would direct us to where we could wait.
She took us to a large lobby waiting room, where we were the only ones waiting. It was now around 5:00AM and we still had no idea what had really happened yet at this point. Every one we asked didn’t know, couldn’t tell us, or had to ask someone else.
Awhile later, some of my family showed up and as we were waiting, a nurse from the open heart surgery area came to direct us to the waiting room on the second floor. We waited in this room until his surgeon came in hours later with news. Dr. Streicher explained to us that my Dad was “desperately ill” in his words. He said that when he arrived to XYZ Hospital, he barely had a pulse. His abdomen was full of blood and fluid, and he was nearly dead. He told us that he didn’t know why, but it took ABC Hospital and unusually long time to get my Dad to XYZ Hospital, and that had contributed to his condition. Dr. Streicher went on to explain how ABC’s CT scan was not done properly, and how it was very poor quality. He told us “You have to be very precise when using dye during CT scans”, and the timing has to be nearly perfect. Whoever did his CT scan at ABC Hospital, clearly did not take the proper steps to produce a clear image. The scan’s images did not allow the doctors at ABC Hospital or himself to see the damages occurring, he said.
Dr. S’s first surgery on my Dad was not a failure, but it was not a success either. He was able to repair his ruptured aorta (which was not ruptured OR leaking a few hours prior, according to ABC Hospital) but his bowl/intestines were so swollen, he was not able to close up his incision. They had him in a “recovery” room, but he was still in very critical condition. So much so, that he had three nurses dedicated to his around the clock care. His abdomen would remain open until the swelling went down, his bleeding slowed, and he stabilized further.
We continued to wait for more news. In the mean time, we got to see our Dad. He was hooked up to every kind of machine imaginable and was heavily sedated. The nurses all seemed weary, but hopeful. They were great about keeping us updated on his progress. His stats were slightly improving, but his blood was still not clotting properly. Dr. S came to us once again, and said he would like to do another surgery to find where the main source of the bleeding was coming from. We agreed, then we waited. During this other surgery, one of his nurses came in and said it wasn’t looking good. She said she couldn’t give us any more information, but we needed to prepare ourselves. At this point, the waiting room was full of family and friends, all of which were sobbing, crying, and patiently waiting.
When the surgery was complete and when Dr. S came back in the room, we were sure he was going to tell us he didn’t make it. But he didn’t. He told us that my Dad’s heart had stopped during the surgery, but they were able to bring him back and complete a very successful operation. Dr. S told us that he was optimistic. He said it went much better than he had expected, and he didn’t think my Dad would have still been alive.
Feeling a little more confident, I went home to shower and sleep That night, I called my Mother to check in on him. She told me they had to perform a Fasciotomy on one of his legs to relieve the pressure. After this surgery is when he started to fade away. Following that procedure, his kidneys started losing function. They said he needed dialysis but he wasn’t strong enough and it would more than likely kill him. Still, they wanted to do some sort of procedure to insert a central line/port in his neck/chest for dialysis. After this procedure was completed, we only had a short time left with our Dad. His heart rate was very fast, his blood pressure very low, and he was still losing blood quickly.
With all of us gathered around him, our Dad passed away on Monday, April 22nd, 2013 at 5:15pm.
