Not good news....

Sorry to have to bring this to you all via blogger...but not much choice unless I figure out a way to get your phone numbers and call all of you...by then, it would be next month. So, I will share with you the tough weekend that the P's have gone through.

Friday evening, my FIL passed away. This was not expected...at all. He was making some good recovery, was going through physical therapy, they really thought that he might be home over the next 3-4 weeks. And then a very odd, crazy, sequence of events happened that we still don't fully grasp. It still seems to surreal.

Thursday afternoon, the doctors took J (my FIL) in for a CT scan to check his liver and see why his skin was so yellow and jaundiced. They found an abscess on his liver and discussed going in to drain the abscess and see the reason for the infection. So Thursday afternoon, they went in to drain the abscess (very routine thing in the eyes of a so called surgery), and in the process, the doctor punctured the liver. They did not know this, until they were taking him to recovery and his blood pressure dropped and he went into cardiac arrest. They revived him, and took him for other tests to see what the problem was.

About 10pm Thursday night, they found that they had punctured the liver and he was bleeding internally. They had given him 2.5 Liters of blood and platelets, which just bled right into his abdomen cavity. They decided they were going to go in, cut open his abdomen to release the pressure and blood and see if they could stop the bleeding.

My husband went down to the hospital at midnight on Thursday to be with his mom and sister.

In the morning, I called and they were in the process of doing the surgery. So I took the day off and went down to be of some support. By the time I got down there, they were done, and the doctor said my FIL was as stable as he was going to be and that the next 48 hours were going to be very critical and that they thought they had stopped the bleeding. So he suggested the family go home to clean up and get some rest and come back down later in the afternoon. So that is what we did. We went back to my IL's house and got some food, took showers, made some phone calls.

Then at about 3pm, my MIL got a call from the doctor at the hospital who had said that they went back in to drain more blood and check the status of the organs, and found that half of the liver was dead, and that there were other organs that were not functioning. They could go in and do a lot of surgery's, put him on a liver donor list, etc, but there was not guarantee. So the family made the decision not to go through with any of it and the doctor said they would keep him sustained until the family was able to make it back down to the hospital.

OMGoodness...what a mess. This was not real, this was not happening. Wow...that is how all of us felt.

So we finished getting ready, and made the trip back down to the city (which by the way, on a Friday night, heading downtown Chicago...uh...can we say about 2 1/2 hours!!!)

There were lots of family and friends there. We were all in the room, paying our last respects, talking about good memories, sharing our life stories about J. Then about 11:30pm, he was taken off the dialysis machine and passed about 15 minutes later, surrounded by his family. It was the craziest things I have ever witnessed.

BTW...my FIL had been sedated since his original surgery to drain the abscess. So he was not conscious or there or anything. But we are all positive that he heard every one of us and had a sense of our presence.

So DH and I were headed back home about 2am Saturday morning, and then after a nice long sleep, would pick up Jos and the dog and head back up to DH's parents house for the weekend to talk about plans.

Ugghh, long and emotional weekend.

Still not sure when the arrangements will be. Probably later this week. So I am at work for at least today and tomorrow, and will then take the rest of the week off.

We are still planning to have Josey's birthday on Monday because we feel J would have wanted it that way. But now that means a lot has to get done early this week because I was planning on having all this week and weekend to clean the house and run errands and get things finalized for her B-day. Now I only have a couple of days. Oh...but it will all be OK!!

So thank you all for your continued prayers and words of encouragement through all of this. Very interesting how God sets the scene and knows where each and every one of His characters are going to be and what they are going to do. It is an interesting blessing that DH does not have a job right now. I don't know that he would have been able to get the time off that he needed to be with his family without pressure and guilt from his work. Things happen for a reason...

Will be in touch when I have a chance. Not sure what the week holds, but additional prayers for the family would be appreciated this week! It is going to be a tough one!!

Love ya!!
LP