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I just realized that while I posted an earlier entry “from the ICU” (well, composed at the ICU, and sent from Starbucks), I totally forgot to mention in my last post that I’ve since returned to San Francisco. Towards the end of the first week, my brothers and I decided to split our time in Florida into shifts, since we realized that my dad could be in hospital there for quite some time, and we all had lives and jobs to attend to back home. So, after a quick review of our calendars, Eddy and I flew back home, while Rammy stayed on for a second week - the “first week” of the rotation. Eddy just flew down for the second week (and Rammy flew back to Toronto on the same plane), and I’ll probably catch a red-eye on Friday night (February 20th) to arrive in Florida again on the 21st. The main thing is that at all times at least one of us is there looking after our mom (who, aside from being understandably worried, is also recovering from bronchitis) and staying close to our dad, and feeding the rest of us updates from the doctors and nurses.

Speaking of which, Eddy told me this afternoon that they had already drained almost a liter of fluid from the area around my dad’s pancreas, and that things were going well in that regard. They also stepped his ventilator down from 14 to 4 bpm, in an attempt to wean him off it. It seems that may have been too much too soon, and they ended up stepping him back up from 4 to 8 bpm. This is still good news to my ears, since it means that someone was confident enough in his recovery to begin trying to wean him off the ventilator. And we’re all eager to see that thing come out - aside from being painful and scary, it’s a huge mental milestone on the road of recovery, and it also means dad will (eventually) be able to speak to us again for the first time since this all started.

So, I’m still trying to be patient, and optimistic. All the messages from friends have really helped - thanks again. Special thanks to Reb, who also sent me cute links to cheer me up and distract me… I thought of Reb (and Montreal) tonight while watching Les Invasions Barbares (the new Denys Arcand film) with Emylene. A very good film, with more than a few shots of Montreal. Unfortunately, since it’s about an estranged son flying back to Montreal (from London) to take care of his dying father, it didn’t exactly offer me much distraction from the present state of affairs.
On a return-the-favor tip, I’m pushing some good vibes out to Arnon, who’s been going through a weird headache thing lately, not to mention some really painful (read: extracting spinal fluid) procedures involved in just having himself checked out. I hope your headaches are history, and that the nice doctors can leave all your spine-juice where it is from here on out.

Wow. You post about something serious, and folks really come out for you… That last post has comments from pretty much the whole Toronto posse (aka “my homies from the Upper North Side”). Which reminds that I’m lousy at keeping in touch with people, and that I somehow have really good friends despite that. Thanks, people. When this is over, I’m hoping to be flying up to Toronto to spend some more time with my Dad, and I’ll have a lot of thanks-giving and catching up to do with you folks in person.

The latest update is mostly good news. We’d all been pretty scared the last few days, since my dad had been taken off all sedation, but wasn’t regaining consciousness. After around 48 hours, you start to worry (rationally or not) that he might be comatose, or that he might have had another stroke… The doctors didn’t appear *too* concerned (a CAT scan of his head came up clean, etc.), suggesting that it might just take a little while for him to wake up. They refer to this state, frighteningly enough, as a “semicoma”. But the good news part is that my dad regained consciousness yesterday - Rammy was at his bedside, and when he yelled “Aba!” (Hebrew for father), my dad opened his eyes for a few seconds. Eventually, he even responded to “Can you hear me?” with a nod of his head. He’s back to (mostly) sleeping now, but we’re all hugely relieved by this direct evidence that “coma” and “semicoma” are indeed different, and that dad’s not actually in a coma.

Right now the doctors are mostly concerned with his temperature (he’s been running a fever almost continuously), which has been spiking up from “low enough not to worry about” to “high enough to worry about” at different intervals. They’re also looking closely at the pancreas itself, since it seems that in pancreatitis cases, “death after the first week is usually caused by pancreatic infection or pancreatic pseudocyst.” Rammy tells me that they’ve decided to go ahead and drain the area of my dad’s abdomen surrounding the pancreas, since it’s likely to be holding a significant volume of caustic and/or infectious fluid, and there may be a mass forming (pseudocyst or not) that could present additional risk. That’s bad news in a general sense, but good in the sense that a problem has been identified and a course of treatment (drainage) has begun. We’re hoping that the drainage, while fairly aggressive and (obviously) invasive, is the event that turns the tide in my dad’s recovery.

For more info than anyone-not-a-doctor would want on Acute Pancreatitis, see the relevant section of the Merck Manual online. Be forewarned that hypochondriacs (*cough*like Kathy*cough*) should probably stay AWAY from all known variants of the Merck Manual.

G’night, sweet people. I miss you all lots. Stay warm, okay?

I’m writing this from my dad’s room in the Intensive Care Unit… And while he’s still critical, and on a respirator, there are some fragments of good news.

First off, though, thanks to everyone for the kind words of support - they really mean a lot. And Em’s been amazing, as usual. My clients and colleagues have also been really supportive, which helps - it’s enough to worry about my parents, without also having to worry (too much) about work.

The neurologist assured us that there’s no evidence of any neurological/brain damage (beyond the remains of the stroke he had 11 years ago), so that’s one less thing to worry about. Moreover, his blood test results (enzyme counts, white blood cell counts, levels of bacterial infection, etc. - they run labs on him at least daily) are better than they’ve been since he was admitted. In fact, they’ve markedly improved since then. And at least one of the doctors thinks that his organs (particularly his pancreas) may be in slightly better shape. But all the same, the doctors have also warned us that he’s still *very* sick, and definitely not out of the woods yet…

Another positive, of sorts, is that when he’s awake, you can tell that he’s “all there” mentally. At least as much as someone in his condition can be. He’s still feverish and in pain from his illness, and in discomfort from being bedridden, with tubes running into him, and a machine doing most of his breathing. Plus, he’s almost always sedated - sometimes mildly, sometimes more heavily. Still, when he’s awake he squeezes my hand, looks at me sometimes, and nods and shakes his head in response to questions. Just a minute ago, I was holding his hand, looking into his eyes, and telling him to stay strong and keep fighting. Then a nurse came by and gave him another sedative, and now he seems to be asleep again. It’s probably best that he be asleep and/or sedated as much as possible - he needs rest more than anything, and it can’t be very pleasant to be conscious in his condition. On the other hand, it’s fantastic to know that he knows we’re all here, and can see and hear us. I hope that’s helping him through this.

No one knows yet why his pancreas failed - we’ve been told that we may never know. The medical term for this is “ideopathic”, which is Latin for “I dunno”. In a sense, this is good news - there are no gallstones (a leading cause of pancreatitis) to remove. So we just have to wait, and hope that he gets better in general, and that his pancreas improves its condition and function in particular. So far it’s been days and nights of watching and waiting, without much visible sign of change. We’re tired, and scared, but otherwise holding up as well as can be expected. I only hope to be able to write again soon, with even better news…

I’m on my way to Fort Lauderdale, via Dallas / Fort Worth. I got word early this morning, via my brothers in Toronto, that my dad had a seizure during the night - something to do with his pancreas shutting down, but no one knows why just yet. He’d been sick yesterday, but it seemed like just some sort of flu bug at the time. We’d all spoken with my Mom last night, and she had planned on taking him to the hospital in the morning if he didn’t feel any better. As it turned out, she ended up calling 911 in the middle of the night. She called my brothers from the hospital, and my brothers called me at home. Now all three of us are headed to Fort Lauderdale to be with our parents. The latest word was that my dad was still listed (as admitted) in critical condition, but that he had been stabilized, and moved from the ER to a room in the ICU. He may have even regained consciousness for a bit, but I’ve only gotten little bits of second-hand info so far. Of course we’re all hoping that he’s going to come out of this just fine (I don’t really know the details yet, but I’m going to assume that’s a possibility), but I know our mom must be a wreck, and it can’t hurt to have us all there. My clients and colleagues (and Em!) have been very understanding and supportive, but I’m a bit of a wreck myself.

Anyhow, it sounds really stupid and it’s said failrly often, but try to remember to call the people you care about. Life is precious, health is precious, and friends and family are precious. Keep your priorities straight, and don’t take the big things for granted.

Nice weekend. Went out with Sebastian on Friday night, which was fun, boys-night stuff. Had to work Saturday, but that was a rarity, and I shall have a comp day to make up for it soon enough. Today Em and I did brunch at a friend’s place, and then caught the last show of SF Sketchfest 2004 at Cobb’s. We went with Karie and Donovan (Lisa and Max were supposed to show, but didn’t), and a good time was had by all. As an added bonus, we got to meet Matt Price (performing at SF Sketchfest with Jason Nash, as Price & Nash). Matt’s an old friend of Karie’s from back in the Chicago (okay, Evanston) days, now living in Los Angeles. Nice guy, and he and Jason had a very funny set. I will never listen to “The Girl from Ipanema” the same way again. And now I’ve added Melvin Goes to Dinner to the top of our Netflix queue, since Matt’s in it (and it sounds pretty good besides).

Also, quite out of nowhere, Rebecca mailed me a link: neave.com. It’s a beautiful site, and no, I hadn’t heard of it before. Thanks, Reb!