Dad's latest adventure

8/10/2012 9:09 PM

Last Friday Dad’s right knee “gave out” on him while he was reaching for his cell phone that he left on his bathroom’s windowsill.  His trusty walker “went out one way” and he went down to his knees landing hard on his right side.  There is still a discussion as to how long he was down; the medical staff at DePaul seems to think it could have been as long as 7 hours, he and his friend Pam don’t believe it was more than 2-3 hours.

Speaking of Pam, she was the one that found him.  Luckily for Dad, Friday was one of those night she “just stops by” as she put it to me today.  She came to the patio door, saw that his chair was up, but she didn’t see him.  She waited a few minutes thinking he was in the bathroom but when he didn’t come back in what she felt was a reasonable amount of time she started banging on the door and calling his name.  Eventually she heard him call help, forced the patio door open & called 911.

Doorway between the bathroom and bedroom where Dad fell.

Because of the way and where Dad landed (on his stomach) the EMTs basically had to drag him across both the bathroom and bedroom floors in order to get him up in a sitting position.  (They put a sheet under his hips and stomach and dragged him out of into the middle of bedroom floor.)  In the process the majority of the skin on the right side of his face, his left elbow and forearm have been scraped off.  From his shoulder to the top of his pants on his right side looks like it was used as Mike Tyson’s punching bag.  His right had has closed in on itself. The doctors agree it is nerve damage but they aren’t sure if it’s permanent or something they can work to get back.  …and all of this is a week after the fact!

Once he was freed from the fall (what else would you call it?) he asked to be taken to DePaul.  While there they found out he was dehydrated, anemic, had fluid in his lungs and around his heart, had a UTI, a kidney infection and his right knee is basically bone on bone.  They have mentioned surgery to repair (that doesn’t sound like the correct word to me) the issue with his heart and obviously having the knee replaced would correct that issue.  Unfortunately neither surgery is an option until they can work on rehabbing his right side enough to be able to function again.  There are also other health issues that have to be resolved before we can even consider either surgery. … in other words that’s WAY down the road.

DePaul transferred him to Envoy at Thorton Hall Thursday night for rehab.  It wasn’t 10 minutes after I got there that I got to see him stand on his own (granted he needed help getting out of the bed, but part of that I think was the bed too) and lower into a wheelchair.  They will have to work on his hand (dominate) and teach him how to walk without damaging the left leg any more and saving what is left of his right knee.

That’s where things stand now.  I’ll try to keep you posted as things change.  Thanks for hanging in there with me.