A major setback...

My Dad was transferred last week to a medical rehabilitation center for physical and occupational therapy. We were so excited that he was moving on and were sure that with the aggressive therapy there he would be back on his feet in no time. He has continued to have some slurring of speech and confusion, which we all figured was likely still due to the drugs that he had been given for such a lengthy period of time during his ICU stay. The new doctors and nurses, however, wanted to run some tests to determine if anything else was going on.

They performed a CT scan, MRI, and Doppler of my Dad's head and neck this weekend and found some disturbing things. He has a clot in his lung, and I think 3 clots in his brain that have formed recently (within the last 3-4 days or so). So, he was taken back to the ER yesterday afternoon, and was placed back into ICU last night. They have started him on blood thinning medication to dissolve the clots, but this carries with it significant risk for internal bleeding (following his recent surgery). We will be walking a fine line for a while. It is risky to do nothing, but also risky to give the blood thinner, as well.

The good news is that they may have found an issue that could have reared its ugly head in a fatal way in a matter of days. The bad news is that we have taken a major step backward and are back in the ICU for an undetermined number of days. These setbacks really take their toll on the whole family. The range of emotions we've experienced over the last month have been just exhausting.