The next few days came and went like we were in a time warp.  Meeting with financial counselors, the social workers, and countless specialists.  It seemed like every time I looked up it was always 2 hours later.  Dad’s vital signs steadily improved and he began to open his eyes and communicate through gestures and head nods.  We usually guessed wrong on what he was asking for, but thankfully the nurses assured us he wouldn’t likely remember it anyway.  He kept gesturing his hands upwards, so I asked if he wanted a hug.  He seemed to stare at me confused.  Turns out he wanted to sit up, but we couldn’t do that with the balloon pump traveling up his leg into his heart.  The nurses kept him restrained so he could not remove his breathing tube.  Every time they asked him if he would pull out the tube he nodded yes.  At least he was honest.

Thursday they were able to remove the balloon pump and support his heart with medications.  They had to hold pressure on his leg for 30 minutes for the artery to clot.  They also placed a pressure device on it for several hours to ensure closure.  Given the dose of blood thinners for what they now knew were two blood clots in his heart made this process very dicey.  Now that we cleared that hurdle and he seemed to be responding well we turned our attention to the breathing tube.  If we could get to the point of removing him from the machine we could finally talk to him again.  The plan was to try pressure support trials on Friday to see how well he was able to breathe on his own.

There is a tendency for the sedation medication to build up in the liver.  Especially in heart failure patients who aren’t pumping enough blood for the kidneys and liver to function at full capacity.  This was definitely the case on Friday.  Dad had a difficult time staying awake, and he struggled with the breathing test because he seemed to tired to remember to breathe.  He started out in a good rhythm, but then would go into apnea.  I would call his name and he would breathe.  He would get in a rhythm, and then apnea again.  I would squeeze his hand and he would breathe.  It became clear that the tube was not coming out Friday.  Phil and I had a hard time being patient.  Especially because we could tell it was causing him a lot of pain.  This was added to our desire to talk with him.

I was up and at it Saturday morning.  I arrived around 7 a.m. which marked the first day I actually beat Phil to the hospital since the ordeal started.  It was hard to sleep knowing that today was the day we would likely get the breathing tube removed.  I was ready to get started with the next pressure test expecting him to pass with flying colors.  Unfortunately the morning pressure support test went the same as it did Friday.  Dad would start out strong and slip into apnea.  I would call his name or squeeze his hand and he would get back into rhythm.  After the morning rounds they decided to increase his heart medication to get it pumping stronger to get his system cleared out.  We did another test in the afternoon and eventually had the break the news to dad that he wasn’t getting off the tube Saturday.  He started to shake his arms and his legs trying to show us he was awake, but we couldn’t take the risk going into the evening hours.  I left for home a bit discouraged, but hopeful that Sunday would be the day.