HyperbAllea

I cannot believe the rollercoaster ride that the past few days have been. As I wrote in my previous post, my grandfather had open heart surgery last Wednesday. He had a valve in his heart replaced with a pig’s valve, which is beyond my comprehension. When I wrote the post on Friday he was doing well…

Thomas and I drove to Charlotte on Saturday morning. I got to go in to see my Paw Paw that afternoon, and aside from the fact that he had a giant wound running down the middle of his chest and various tubes and monitors attached to him, he seemed to be doing fairly well considering his chest had been sliced open three days earlier. He was having a little trouble breathing though, and had extra fluid in his lungs, around his heart, and throughout his body tissue.

Overnight on Saturday they decided to take away his plain oxygen mask and put him on another machine that would instead push air in, opening the airways and increasing his oxygen. His oxygen continued to decrease throughout the day Sunday, and by the evening they decided to put him back on the respirator, which meant he would have to be sedated. We went home scared and discouraged, not knowing what the next morning’s visit would bring.

On Monday morning, he was stabilized on the respirator, but was completely unresponsive when we went in to visit him because of the sedative. On Tuesday they decided to start weaning him off of the respirator and the sedative. I had to leave on Tuesday afternoon, which was so hard. Tuesday evening he was moved into his own room, and today he’s off the respirator and doing a little better without it than he was last time.

I can’t imagine the pain and discomfort he has been through this past week. He’s so discouraged right now and doesn’t feel like he’ll ever get better. I’ve heard that heart surgery can really mess with a person’s emotions, and I think that’s what’s happening to my Paw Paw right now. Please pray that he would be encouraged and comforted, and that he will keep heading in the right direction in his recovery.