On March 17th my Dad had a massive heart attack. Luckily my Mum realised something was wrong with him and managed to bundle him into a car and get to the hospital. As they were entering the hospital car park he passed out. Paramedics and the doctors rushed to get him out and managed to revive him. He was transferred that day from the hospital in my hometown to a hospital in Manchester, UK, where the specialist heart centre is for the North West of England.
The first 24 hours they cooled his body and managed to stabilise him fully, after putting him in an induced coma. However, after trying to revive him, his heart repeatedly went into arythmias which required them to shock his heart back into something resembling a regular rhythm. They put him back into a coma and increased his drugs.
Unfortunately, last Friday night his condition deteriorated drastically and the doctors could not stabilise his heart. Every five minutes he went back into an arythmia requiring them to shock him. The doctors were convinced he was going to die, so they called for a priest and got us all to come back to the hospital to be with him. Yet, somehow he survived.
Unfortunately still, around that time the doctors found he’d contracted pneumonia due to a decreased immune system and his kidneys had begun to fail due to the large amount of drugs he was on, trying to prop up his blood pressure and stabilise his heart rate.
Finally, the drugs seemed to work and was breathing (mostly) on his own, with the ventilator helping just a bit, and his heart rate had stabilised, with the drugs being slowly reduced. The doctors decided to bring him around again. That was five days ago and he has still not come around, and shows no sign of response. Today he had a brain scan to check for any signs of brain activity. We won’t know the results for sure for another few days, but the doctors have spoken to my Mum tonight and told her in all likelihood he’s braindead due to a lack of oxygen flow. He’ll be transferred back to my hometown tonight, where in all likelihood they will remove his tracheotomy and allow nature to take its course (barring a miracle result from the brain scan).
He was 61, and apparently in good health, having been to work the day before he had his heart attack.
Fuck, man. You have my deepest sympathies. I really hope your dad pulls through. Remember, no matter how bleak the prognosis may be, the recovery powers of the human body should never be underestimated. Please keep us updated.
61? That’s way, way too young - I’m sorry this is happening, Capt. Here’s hoping for the best, that he’s young enough and strong enough to pull through.
Oh that’s awful. Sounds so banal to say it like that.
While you are waiting for a (hopefully) positive outcome, keep your strength up. Eat and sleep as normally as possible. Your mom is going to need all the support she can get too.
QFT. I recently went through something like this, and it was tough to eat right. The hospital had some pretty crap food, and everything in the neighborhood catered to the college crowd. It was worth our while to seek out what quality we could.
I am so sorry to hear this. My father’s 51st birthday is in a couple of weeks, but unfortunately he passed away in October due to complications from heart surgery. The month before the surgery, he had been running 6 miles several times a week.
If you ever feel the need to talk, feel free to PM me. The hospital can be pretty surreal, especially if you’re basically living in the waiting room. Take care of yourself, and no that however you feel, it’s ok to feel that way.
