I just came back from the hospital from seeing Dad. He has improved GREATLY from where he was last night.

For those of you who don’t know, Dad had a pain in his abdomen since Wednesday. Finally, on Friday, they figured out that it wasn’t a pulled muscle like they assumed – it was actually pulmonary embolisms. Pulmonary embolisms (I didn’t know what those were until I looked it up on WebMD.com) are blood clots in the lungs. Large clots can kill patients instantaneously, while smaller clots are survivable. Dad’s pain level reached an 8 or 9 (10 being the worst pain he’s ever felt in his life), before they were able to do anything to help him out.

The good news is, the doctors did a brain CT scan and discovered that the brain swelling has gone down since his last CT and the bleeding in his brain stopped. This allowed the doctors to give Dad some blood thinners and install a filter in his vein to “catch” loose clots. As of this afternoon, Dad did not have a headache (for the first time in 3 weeks) and his abdomen doesn’t hurt. They took him out of Critical Care this afternoon and put him in a private room (sure beats rooming with EColi guy… yuck!). When I left, Dad was asleep in bed and Mom was asleep in the chair next to the bed with the Cubs game playing softly in the background. Dad’s mom, Grandma R, would have been proud. 🙂

Anyway, thanks again for everyone who continues to pray for Dad and our family. They mean a lot and make a difference!