I just got home from spending the day at the hospital. Dad is was sleeping comfortably when I left, BUT he's on a lot of medication for pain and sleeping, and he's hooked up to a ventilator. He did well most of the day, but early this evening he starting to have difficulty breathing, and the doctor in charge decided to assist his breathing with the ventilator. Currently he's able to breathe on his own whenever he can and wants to. But the vent pushes air into him when he doesn't breathe enough. We've been told he can come off the vent tomorrow if he's doing well. Also tomorrow we're expecting to make decisions about how to feed him. My understanding is we'll need to have a tube go directly into his stomach. Also, we considered moving him to Baptist East hospital in Louisville when things went downhill this evening, but for now we've decided to stay at the hospital in Frankfort. The main reason is that we can be in the room with him 24/7 even though he's in the ICU. Also we think most of the staff are doing a good job there.
Summary: he's currently not suffering, but by no means out of the woods. Besides getting him back on track with his breathing, eventually we have to figure out why he has so much pain in his back and how (if possible) to fix whatever's wrong.
John
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