How sad is it that I always thought it was a play on Pokemon? Pikachu… picunurse… Hrm.
We’ve got the following at our hospital, and just to clarify: IVA = ICU
NIVA = neuro
Neo-IVA = neonatal
SIVA = stroke
LIVA = intermediate
BIVA = pedes
BIVA = burns intensive care
CIVA = central intensive care
HIA = CCU
THIVA = thoracic
PIVA = psychiatric
I don’t know why I listed that. It was more to my own curiosity than anything else. Oh well =)
He called me last night!! squee
I heard his wonderful, incredible, AMAZING dad voice!
The doctors said that he’s making an incredible recovery… he is walking a bit with help… and he can speak (But you’re right, his voice is scratchy and a bit soft).
He said that he loved me and that he’s happy to be alive. He also said that he knows my best friend and I were going to come visit him in a couple of weeks and asked us not to… he said he just had a terrible feeling about us driving out there.
I told him that I loved him SOSOSO much and that I’m so happy to hear his voice. I told him that we would wait until he had a good feeling, and we’ll come visit him then.
My stepmom got on the phone a bit later and said that the Diprivan that they had him on had left him with some severe emotional issues that should clear up after the drugs have a couple of days to flush out of him. He is convinced that Ventura is a bad place to be where bad things happen… he wants to sell the house they JUST bought and move somewhere else… he thinks that if I come see him, I’ll die on the way there and he thinks that if his best friend drives down from Santa Maria, he’ll be in danger as well.
He’s very clingy, but is awake and alive and his wife is doing her best to stay by him 24/7 until this crap wears off. They’re still looking at releasing him by Wednesday if all goes well.
She also said that he appears to remember quite a bit about his intubation that he wasn’t supposed to. 
I told her to just keep assuring him that everything is okay… the worst is over now and that we all love him and we’re all going to be okay. I told her to assure him that he will feel a lot better in a couple of days and that this too will pass.
I love my dad so much. Thank you all for your prayers and good thoughts. I’ll update soon.
When I was a med stud, we referred to a few units at our hospital by our own acronyms. Like the Fetal Ultra Care Unit, Diagnostic Intermediate Care Unit, and the Laparoscopic Incisional Care Unit.
Med students really can be lowlifes. 
Wonderful news, malkavia! Such a relief! I went thru similar with my own dad.
As someone else above said, that’s a great Christmas present. We’re all glad for you and your family.
Now, better late than never, for those who have loved ones hospitalized far away from them:
Hospitals today have social workers (number depends mainly on how big the place is). If you get in touch with the social worker, (s)he can network with the doctors for you. Even if there’s a designated family member who gets the information, it can often be arranged that the news you need to know can be transmitted through the worker. I’ve dealt with some, and they’re generally very helpful.
malkavia I’m so glad to hear he’s doing so well. This truely means a Merry Christmas for your family.
edwino thank you for helping to clarify my username. 
malkavia I’m not sure what
means. Clearly, I need educating.
QtM You sound like you were typical of the medical students I endured over the years. You turned out ok so I guess there’s hope for the rest. 
Pokemon is a japanese cartoon where these kids have little pet monsters that they keep in balls and only release to do battle with other kids’ pet monsters. The main kid’s favorite monster is named Pikachu. 
Dad is doing even better now. He’s not quite as clingy as he was and has moved on to being genuinely apologetic for everything we’ve been through as a result of him not seeking medical care until it was almost too late. He begged his wife to talk to my fiancee’ about not being stubborn when it comes to doctors visits. He also told her he doesn’t feel like he was a very good dad. I told her to let him know that was nonsense. There’s never a moment in my life where I’m not completely confident that my dad loves me and is there for me, even if he lives a few hours away.
He can walk with assistance and they’ve removed the nose feeding tube. He’s eating mashed potatos, peas and a few ground up meat type things the old fashioned way now.
He also got to talk to his two step-boys on the phone last night! I’ll bet they were thrilled to hear his voice.
I woke up to a 30 gig video ipod from my fiancee’ this morning. Even that is second to dads recovery as far as Christmas gifts go. A close second, but still.
Best. Christmas. EVAR.
I just wanted to add that I almost lost my own father (he’s in his mid-70s) to pneumonia earlier this year (BOTH my parents were in the hospital with pneumonia at the same time!) and while it took him time to recover, by now you’d never know he had been that ill. Although, to be honest, he never got quite as ill as the OP’s father, the point is that as scary as a stay in the ICU can be, people can and do recover from these illnesses. Best of luck to all of you. And you are fortunate to have such a strong and admirable stepmother, regardless of her age.
Really glad to hear that everything is coming along just fine, malkavia. A year or two ago, a somewhat similar thing happened to my mom (about your dad’s age) where she went in for a very routine in-and-out operation, somehow got internal bleeding, and ended up attached to a million tubes and on the brink of life in the ICU for a few weeks. Now she’s completely fine and I rarely think about it, but it was probably the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me and I totally know how happy you must be to see things looking up. Best wishes to your dad.