Continuation from the last post...

My father was admitted to St. Lukes on January 29, 2008. He went immediately to the ICU. Within five minutes of him arriving in the ICU, members of Dr. Coselli's team arrived to gather information. Since he had apparently had a complete blockage in his GI system, the doctors wanted to get a tube down his nose to pump out whatever fluids had been collecting in his stomach, so there would be room for him to take medicine to improve the CAT scan pictures, and also to keep him from vommiting any more. This had been attempted in Fort Worth, but since my dad has had several broken noses (he grew up in a rough area of town) they were unable to get one in. Somehow a doctor from Dr. Coselli's team was able to get a tube in, and at least four liters of fluid were removed immediately, with more to follow as the day wore on.

Dr. Coselli wanted to get a CAT scan done to see what they were working with as far as the aneurysm was concerned, and to see about the blockage. So he was put in line to have the scan done. Apparently the CAT scan was heavily booked, and it was not until the next day that the CAT scan was done. My dad was resting much better now that the fluid was not accumulating, although he did not like the tube in his nose much.

Once they had done the CAT scan, the doctors could tell that the aneurysm was not as large as was first believed, however they found a mass in his pancreas, and also found where the blockage was in his intestines. Since the priority of the aneurysm declined as it was not as large, the doctors began concentrating on the blockage. His care was transfered over to a team headed up by Dr. William Fisher, who is an expert in dealing with such issues.

Gotta go now...more later...

More on my Dad

So at that point, the cardiac surgeon in Fort Worth felt that the aneurysm was too tricky for him to work on, and he refered us to Dr. Coselli, a world renowned vascular surgeon, at St. Luke's Episcopal Hospital, down in Houston. Before we could get him down there, he had to go again to the All Saints emergency room, as the nausea and vomiting had come back, and he had become dehydrated. The hospitalist at All Saints said that they could not find a blockage in my father's GI tract, and that he was considering exploratory surgery to attempt to find the problem. This would delay any potential repair on the anuerysm so we decided that it would be best for him to try and get down to St. Lukes to see Dr. Coselli, in order for him to coordinate any treatment. It was aranged for him to have a hospital to hospital transfer down to St. Lukes.

More later....

Updates and stuff

It's been a while since I have posted here...not sure if any body is actually reading this at all, but there you go.

Back on December 31, 2007, my father was taken to the All Saints emergency room in Fort Worth, TX. He had been having some trouble with nausea and throwing up, mainly late at night for a few weeks, but it had gotten to be a concern by December 31. They did some x-rays and a CAT scan and observed that there was an aortic aneurysm just above and adjacent to the one that was repaired in May, 2006. They said that it measured 5.7cm (which is in the range of great concern), so all focus of treatment went towards finding out about the aneurysm.

Gotta go now, more later....