The CICU

Dad looked great. He had great color, his dressings were clean and dry, and the three chest tubes coming from under his incision looked like they were draining perfectly. When I walked in, I admit I had been preparing myself for the worst all day. But, I was happy that he looked good. He was on a bunch of pressors, and still tubed, and getting a fresh bag of plasma.

I wanted to jump right in, and start taking care of him. When his blood pressure started dipping and his alarm started sounding, I wanted to reach out and up his dobutamine. When the respiratory therapist was suctioning him (nope, couldn't watch)- I wanted to yell from behind the curtain after she said, "hmmm, not getting anything"...and say, "does he have a plug"? I wanted to check his pupils...I wanted to strip his chest tubes...and most of all, I wanted him to squeeze my hand before I left for the evening.

But he was still sleeping when we left. And I left the nurses and the docs to do their job. They told us that it may take a while for him to wake up, because he was pretty much under for 8 hours, and he's still heavily sedated. I hope he sleeps until morning. Because I don't want him to wake up in the middle of the night, and be afraid.

When I got home, I called right away for an update. He's stable right now, and the only problem he's having is that he's a little acidotic. They gave him some bicarb..and they'll check his gas again in an hour. I'll check in on him once more before bed, and pray to any god/deity that will listen that he'll be alright. And he's still sleeping.

Thanks for all of the text messages and IMs and phone calls....you've all helped me through today. One day down, and lets hope the rest of his hospital stay only gets better from here on out. That he walks out of the hospital with merely a scar on his chest that he can blame on a shark attack would be fantastic.

And I promise, if he does well- I will never- ever-ever make fun of pictures of Daddy that look like this:

Or this:

or this: