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Merry Christmas Daddy!



Well, it’s been a VERY long 4 weeks! As I write this, my Dad is finally on his way home…something that we thought wasn’t going to happen. It’s the best Christmas present!



First of all, my family and I send a heartfelt thank you to all of you who were so kind and supportive…the emails and postings meant more to us than you will ever know. We are forever grateful to all of you!



Dad has a long history with cancer…..one testicle removed in 1968…surgery, chemo and radiation….one kidney removed in 1991…surgery only. In October 2008 he was diagnosed with esophageal cancer…very early stage. The surgery is very difficult but radiation alone was not an option due to Dad’s previous radiation therapy in 1968.



Dad had surgery for esophageal cancer on Wednesday Nov.26. During the operation, they remove the esophagus and ‘stretch’ the stomach up to attach to the remaining part of the esophagus. When they did this in Dad’s case, his spleen began to bleed….scar tissue from radiation treatments for testicular cancer in 1968. He required 8 pints of blood. The spleen is very important in helping to fight infections…something that Dad would experience in the days to come.



After a very long wait (8+ hours) we saw Dad in the SCCU (Surgical Cardiac Care Unit). He was coherent but in a lot of pain. He can’t tolerate morphine so we made sure they were giving him other meds. On Friday, his one kidney began going into renal failure and his blood pressure was too high. There was also fluid in the lungs. We had a few moments with him and said things that we all wanted to say and then let the doctors take over to put in the central line. I think Dad knew he was in trouble. When they put in the ‘central line’ (one intravenous line to administer all meds and take blood etc), Dad’s lungs filled with fluid, and he panicked when he couldn’t breathe and they ended up putting him on a ventilator. During this, he also suffered a heart attack and they had to shock it into rhythm. He was transferred to ICU where he remained for the next 11 days.



There are far too many details to post of what happened over the next week and longer….another heart attack, E-Coli infection, C-Difficil infection, renal failure, lung failure, unstable blood pressure and heart rates…either too low or too high, chest drains for chest cavity fluid etc etc. Dad was on every machine that you can imagine. He slept through it all while Mom and I sat by his bedside for hours every day. It was emotionally and mentally draining. It was also something that we knew Dad did not want and we informed the doctors that we wanted no heroic efforts…although I think we were already in that territory.



On Saturday, Dec.6, the ventilator was removed and Dad spoke to us for the first time. Daddy was back! He told us how much he loved us and how he could never thank us for all that we had done for him. That would be the last coherent statement that we would hear from him in quite a few days. Since Dad had been resting for so long, he was well-recovered from his surgery. This was a good thing, but it also meant that he was anxious to get up and move around. Not possible with all the things that were still connected to him. The ICU nurses had to sedate him and this is where the next week of trouble began. Dad can’t tolerate morphine or any other kind of drug that affects the central nervous system. The nurses were giving him anti-psychotics and anti-depressants (often used for elderly patients with age-related confusion) as well as sleeping pills….he slipped into a drug-induced dementia. This was more difficult for us to go through than him being on a ventilator. It was like someone had taken all of his thoughts and experiences of the last 77 years, thrown them in a blender and now it was all coming out, all mixed up. We couldn’t convince the doctors that he wouldn’t come out of this fog until they stopped the meds. They agreed, but they couldn’t keep him under control at night when we weren’t there.



On Tuesday, Dec.16, Dad was transferred via ambulance to our local hospital. He was in a private room with 1 to 1 monitoring. His last med was on Monday night. He was still very confused. We needed at least 72 hours with no meds to see if he would improve mentally. The next week passed with Mom spending most of her days and all of her evenings and nights at the hospital. There was not enough staff to offer the 1 to 1 every night, so Mom slept in his room to help him. We knew that we had to keep him off the meds or he would never get back to ‘himself’. It’s been so hard on my Mom. They grew up together in Copenhagen and have been married for 54 years...there's nothing that they won't do for each other.



Today, Tuesday, Dec.23, Dad is on his way home. Yes, he is still a little more confused than what he was pre-surgery, but he has a lot more coherence each day. More forgetful than he was before, as well. He is still on a feeding tube at night but is starting to eat more regular food. Mom has said that she doesn’t need home care assistance, but I think she may find that it is more than she can handle, long term. Time will tell. During the holidays, all of us will be helping out…thank goodness we only live 5 minutes apart.



I’m not sure how much turkey Dad will have tomorrow on Christmas Eve and I know he can’t dance around the candle-lit Christmas tree in our Danish tradition, but he’s alive and he’s home with his family. That’s what Christmas is all about!