drewp_85

So about a month ago my dad's leg started hurting, we just figured it was a muscle thing. But Monday it still hurt and started swelling up, and his heart started beating really fast. So when he went into the hospital they gave him something to slow his heart rate since it was 170 bpm (normal heart rate is 80 bpm) and it broke up a clot that was in his leg and it lodged in his lung. So then he had an highly elevated heart rate, was intubated with a breathing tube and a dangerously low blood pressure.

When I went to go see him my mom didn't warn me what it was like, and I was totally blindsided when I walked in. When I saw him in the ICU, I really didn't think I could walk into the room. My dad is in the best shape of any 54 year old I know (with the exception of my mom who runs marathons 2 YEARS after getting open heart surgery) he runs 2 miles a day and coaches the girls high school soccer team. But he was lying in that bed and there were tubes everywhere. Breathing tube, feeding tube, IV's and hella others and HEAVILY sedated. It was really tough to see.

I went back home today to help my parents with chores around the ranch that they couldn't take care of being in the hospital. But a couple hours after I left they finally decided to shock his heart with the defibrillators since all the other meds they gave him weren't correcting the problem with his heart. Once they sedated him and shocked it though, his heartbeat went back to normal and that should hopefully raise his blood pressure to a safe level. Then a few hours later they took the breathing tube out and he was breathing fine.

He's not outta the woods yet, but he is getting better.