Dad UPDATE

Things continue to NOT go as planned...

- his kidneys continue to be a problem.  They've called in a kidney specialist, and they are trying some sort of medication to see if it might take care of the problem, but the prognosis isn't exactly what we were hoping for.

- he's not getting enough oxygen, so they may be doing the "full blown" tube down the throat thing today.

- the medication he's on has made him loopy, and groggy, and a little paranoid.  At this point he's CONVINCED that the hospital is slowly trying to kill him with medication, and he won't let mom leave the room.  Her health insn't the greatest, so it's taking a big toll on her too.

- Surgery has been postponed for TWO OR THREE WEEKS, because the doctors are concerned that he's not "stable" enough to undergo surgery at this time.  At this point, his calves are still split open (they were going to close them up as part of the surgery), the aorta is still mostly blocked (during the emergency surgery on Wednesday morning, they put in a temporary stent), and he still has very limited mobility in his legs.

The doctors told mom that this is the most challenging/difficult/intense surgery that they perform at Mercy Hospital, which doesn't fill any of us with much comfort.

Robin is driving down today to spend a few days with mom.  Duane and I are flying down today as well (Robin and I came back on Friday night to regroup, repack, reassess, etc.).

Keep us all in your prayers...things still don't look good, and the time frame for ever getting back to even PARTIALLY "normal" keeps getting pushed further and further away.

Hug your loved ones, and nag them to get their cholesterol checked if there's even the REMOTEST possibility of it causing problems.  I have purchased my fish oil pills, bought a bag of oat bran to sprinkle on EVERYTHING, and am scheduling the blood test that I've been putting off for a couple of YEARS for later this week!