Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Helluva day

    Dad's surgery was pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, however, they used a nerve block for his right arm. This means that afterwards, his right arm was dead for four hours. And brilliant folks that they are, they sent him home. So I got him home, and I got my brother to come and help, but in a car doorway you can't fit three people. So I had to lift him out of the car (he has to have two hands to push himself up to stand up) and just couldn't hold him.
    He fell, hitting his head on the concrete driveway, and bled pretty copiously. I called 911 and asked for an ambulance. They got there quite quickly and took him to the ER. Somehow, this was not that of the hospital we'd just left (which I had asked for) but the bigger, farther away one. However, it worked out. Turned out that it was really only a very small scrape. All the bleeding was due to a hematoma no one had known about (under the skin, not subdural, so nothing requiring surgery or anything). However, they will be admitting him for observation, and he'll be able to get dialysis there tomorrow, so all's well that ends well.
    It looks like it will be very, very late before he actually gets admitted. We would have liked to stay at least to see him off to his room (where we couldn't have actually visited since visiting hours outside the ER end at 9), but I had been standing for 3 hours, hadn't eaten in 13, and was getting towards the time when I wouldn't be safe to drive. But I'm expecting a call that will include his room number, and am looking forward to visiting tomorrow. Lots of funny stuff happened after we found out he was in no danger, but I'm much too tired to remember any of it now. Perhaps I'll blog about it further tomorrow.

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