Jan. 12, 2010 - ICU Vigil Continues

I arrived at the ICU unit in Christian Northeast Hospital in St. Louis, MO at about 8:00 tonight. I had already talked to my older sister and my younger sister on the phone so I knew that dad's pathology reports were back and that dad had been diagnosed with non-small cell squamous carcino of the lung in stage 2. He looks stronger tonight then he has for the past 3 days.

When I entered his ICU room, Dr. Doerr was talking to dad about what the prognosis was for his type of lung cancer and what options he has open to him. But at 84 years of age, dad isn't sure he wants to do anything but go home. My brother, sisters and I all agree with his decision, but if he decides to change his mind when he is stronger and feels better, we will support that too.

After Dr. Doerr left, dad talked to us girls more than he has in days. He asked for his rosary, which he made me put in my purse before we left the house last Thursday to come to the hospital for the surgery to remove the tumor. He hasn't wanted it though until tonight. As I sit here blogging on the computer, dad is saying his rosary, as he sits in the chair by his bed. He has a couple less tubes coming from his body, as during the day, they removed one of the drainage lines from pops lung, but the posterior line is remaining in place for a while. They also put a picc line in because pop's veins in his arms are collapsing and hard to hit when trying to start new IVs.

I will be glad when they remove the feeding tube from his nose so he doesn't sound like he is all stuffed up in the head when he talks to us. It makes it a little difficult to understand what he needs talking around that line in his throat. Hopefully if he continues to strengthen, they will be able to remove it in the next day or so.

All of the staff here at Christian have been absolutely wonderful. The night nurse, Mona was fabulous with dad and felt so awful when she couldn't get a new IV started. She was the one that requested that a PICC be inserted so that dad wouldn't have to go through getting stuck again like that. Jauna took over for Mona around 7:00 this morning and she flirted and joked with dad all morning. She even got him to chuckle a few times.  I have written it before and I will write it again, "thank God for the wonderful people that work here at Christian Northeast".