Interfaith Group

It was a rough night but there is good news.

The endoscopy found a bleeding ulcer - likely from the medication. That coupled with the pneumonia, CHF, mild kidney dysfunction, and his age was a deadly combo.

He has responded well to the blood transfusions. They have clamped off the ulcer and his blood pressure is slowly returning to normal. He is on high dosages of antibiotics. His cardiologist is also monitoring now his heart meds accordingly.

My mother felt confident enough to actually go back to the apartment to get some much needed rest so that is good.

He is not out of the woods yet and certainly has a long road to recovery if he can make it through the coming week. They are saying at this point that he will be in ICU for at least the remainder of this week. Then he will get a regular room for a week or more. After that they will send him to a rehab facility for a period of time, and then hopefully he can get back home to my mother.

Last year, he had a bad leg infection that required a short hospital stay and about two weeks in rehab so he and mom have experience with that facility and staff already. They were excellent, offered great rehab, and allowed constant family visits.

Emotionally, mom is doing a bit better. She has her minister there, and he has been a stalwart companion for the last 48 hours. I have met him, and he is a really good man - deeply spiritual and very empathic. My youngest sister is handling it well and will stay at the apartment with mom until he is at least in the regular room if not rehab.

My other sister is not. Sadly she is a DC politico, an alcoholic (not in recovery!) and rather estranged from our mother (also an alcoholic but in recovery). She does not agree with 'heroic' measures even though that is what both my parents want at this time. She tried to muscle in at the hospital but thankfully the minister neutralized that problem. I am planning on calling her later this morning to encourage her to back off and let mother deal with this as our father wants. Hopefully we won't argue too much.

Thank you for all of the replies - even from those I have on Ignore and can't read but do see. I have shared with my mother that so many here were thinking of us and praying for us. That really made her feel good. I will update as I know more. Hopefully he will make it through this so that we can move there and have some remaining time with him before he does die.