Daddy Update!

It's been a disappointingly sloooow process for my dad to get out of the hospital...

What was supposed to be an outpatient procedure turned into a nearly one week hospital stay with some complications. He is currently still in Toledo at UTMC, and hopefully if all goes well he'll be discharged late tomorrow evening or Tuesday morning.

Immediately after his heart cath last Wednesday, during which the doctor had to place a new stent inside his old stent, he started having severe chest pain, which has been an off and on problem these past few days.

Because of the amount of scar tissue and plaque build up around his old stent, it took a lot of "blasting and scraping" to get the artery clear, and as a result there was either a heart attack, or enough damage to his heart from the procedure itself to CREATE a heart attack. Regardless of which it actually was, it feels the same, the results are the same, and his doctors have been treating it the same - as if he just had a heart attack. He's been on a number of drips and medications to dissolve the clot/debris that was knocked loose during the stenting, and it's rather "tricky" to get the right amounts and dosages of everything just right for his blood pressure to be ok and for his lab work to be within normal limits so that they can manage things well at home.

The most discouraging thing for him has been that just when he starts to feel better and progress, he'll start to have chest pain again, so it feels like a set back that keeps interfering with him being free to go home. (I keep picturing him like one of those cartoon characters on the front of a Hallmark card, running out of the hospital with his gown flapping in the wind, full moon shining, and not looking back!)

And if you know anything at all about the havoc narcotics can wreak on the digestive system of a person who's not moving around too much, well, that's all I'm going to say about that!!! It's been a very SLOW MOVING process in a lot of ways!! :) (Aaah, poor Dad!)

He, as well as our whole family, are so grateful for your thoughts and continued prayers as he recovers and continues to trust God for complete healing. And a special thank you to Susan, my favorite UTMC nurse for taking such awesome care of my dad! I love you!

If anyone would like to participate, we'd like to have a "card shower" for Dad this week when he gets home from the hospital. Who doesn't love to get mail, especially the uplifting kind??!! :)

His address is:

Sherman Hathaway
11650 County Road 17
West Unity, OH 43570

Thanks again, and we'll keep you posted!

Much Love,
Sheila Smith and the Hathaway Family!!