Day 2 after surgery

First, I hope all of you have had a merry Christmas.


Today was a very stressful and productive day. Dad was given a CT scan this morning because he had become non responsive over night. They determined that he had blood pooling under the skull between the membrane and the bone. This was causing the brain to be pushed past midline and our amazing neuro resident Doug Taylor, put a call in to Dr. Sorensen requesting dad be brought in to surgery again to take the blood off.

*A side note about Doug. He is a friend of Mark and Katherine's from high school and college. We are so grateful to have a familiar face in such a scary time. It just shows you how God is working to help put our fears at ease.*

They took dad in and removed the blood. They also placed drains to prevent the blood from pooling there again. From what I understand, the doctor thinks dad responded poorly to the Levanox that he was given to help prevent blood clots, and it caused him to bleed instead. We are so grateful for Doug, and his assessment, being able to identify that the pressure dad was saying was causing so much pain, was something worth looking in to further.

Dad came out of the surgery well and as a comfort and safety measure, they opted to leave him intubated and slightly sedated through the night in hopes of him getting good rest. He will remain in the neuro ICU tonight.

We are so blessed with amazing friends that are practically family and the outpouring of support and love. David Poley is like a brother to dad, and he offered to spend his Christmas night by dad's side tonight. They always meet Saturday mornings for a weekly devotion at Starbucks. He is reading their devotion with him in the hospital right now and going to be a vigilant prayer warrior by dad's side.

We want to thank all of you that have brought food, provided words of encouragement, warm bodies with which to interact, and of course your thoughts and prayers for our family.

I'm including a picture that Mark and Wendy sent us from Argentina this morning. Wendy included a caption saying that this beautiful moon reminded her of the star over Bethlehem.