Hello guys.
Some of you may already know about this after reading the stuff I've previously posted in the shoutbox regarding all of this. Anyway, to get to the point, my dad is sick. Very sick. This has affected not just his own life, but the lives of the people around him as well. I've been quite depressed recently, and had to take over a week off of work due to a recent incident regarding his sickness.
I thought I'd make this post to keep everyone up to speed as I obviously see a lot of people care, wishing for his best every time I give updates on his condition in the shoutbox and whatnot. I'm also making this post because I can't keep answering the questions I get regarding how he's doing, how I've been, etc. because it's too stressful and draining. Anyway, I'll go right back to the beginning.
A little over two months ago, my dad was suffering from some back pains that gradually got worse and worse, to the point he couldn't really do any manual labor and would always ask me, my sister or my mom for help in doing anything. At this point, all of us had already told him to go to a doctor and get it looked at, but being as stubborn as he is, he decided not to go. His back kept hurting more and more, and we started to see his stomach swell up as well. He'd stop getting out of bed, always felt cold, and would be sleeping nearly all day. We were getting tired of telling him to go to his doctor, so we contacted one of my sisters who's a nurse at one of the largest and most specialized hospitals in the country. Thankfully, my dad is smart enough to listen to her when she tells him to go to the doctor, so one day, he finally decides to go.
Not even an hour passes after he's gone to his doctor, and he's already been hospitalized at the closest hospital. At this point, they've discovered he has around 7 liters worth of fluid in his stomach that his body hasn't been able to pass the natural way, so they obviously decided to drain it all. He then spent a while at the same hospital as they tried to figure out exactly what might've caused this, and they were suspecting some liver damage he was previously diagnosed with. He's eventually moved to another hospital, and they start to suspect that he's suffering from liver failure, or at the very least, late stage liver damage. It's at this point they also figure out his kidneys are not functioning properly, and they diagnose him with kidney failure as well.
For some reason, the geniuses at the hospital decide to send him home and give him an appointment at yet another hospital that's supposed to be more specialized and have the right staff as well as equipment for his situation. At this point, there's 2 weeks until this appointment, so he just has to stay at home and be careful with what he eats, drinks and whatnot. It's already obvious at this point that he'll have to take medication for the rest of his life, so that's already started at this point, although he medication does make him kind of sick as well and he often ends up throwing it back up.
A few days pass by with no real issues. He's still tired and doesn't really get out of bed, but that is to be expected. His belly once again started to bloat up, though not as noticeable as last time. Then, one morning, as my mom gets home from work, she sees my dad standing in the middle of the kitchen, searching through our cabinets. She asks what he's looking for, to which he simply responds "soap". At this point he's searched throughout the house and even one of the cars outside, and has for some reason collected our washing machine pods on the living room table - one of which was out of its packaging, and taken a bite of. My mother quickly gets worried and tries talking to my dad, and noticing his speech is completely intelligible and anything he does manage to say is absolute gibberish, she decides to ask if he remembers his social security number, which he didn't. She decided to ask if he knows who she is, and he couldn't answer the question. She then decides to call his doctor and asks what to do, and his doctor proceeds to send an ambulance to our home in order to pick him up.
When the paramedics arrive, he's starting to come to his senses. He is still completely disoriented and even mistook my mom for one of my brothers, but at least he could say his social security number. The paramedics bring him out in the ambulance, and drive him to yet another hospital. My mom and I follow along right behind them as they aren't driving with lights or anything on. We finally arrive at the hospital and my mom runs inside with the paramedics while I go park the car.
When I finally get into the room with my mom and dad, they are about to take my dad away to do some tests and a CT-scan, to make sure it isn't a stroke, and they end up finding nothing. They basically tell us "we have no idea how this happened but it's gone now" and after 4 hours, tell us to go home. What they didn't know is that my dad had suffered from a liver coma, a result of the liver being unable to remove toxins from the blood, and as a result, the toxins are sent to the brain, which can also cause brain damage, something that becomes rather apparent to us when he's back home as he doesn't really act or feel like himself.
We decide to wait until his appointment at another hospital, and when he's finally there, my mom ends up having to explain everything we've already gone through once again since this is the 4th hospital he's been at, but they apparently don't really share medical records for their patients, so they genuinely don't know exactly what he's been through so far. They notice his bloated belly, and his stomach is once again drained for fluids, this time a total of 11 liters, making it roughly 18 liters worth of fluid so far. They tell us that the previous incident was a liver coma, and they start preparing new medication for him, as apparently his current medication wasn't properly prescribed, and he needed some different stuff.
We beg and plead for them to keep him there for as long as possible to figure out some kind of treatment and diet for him, so that we can avoid having to experience yet another one of these liver comas, especially since it's unlikely he'll survive going through that once again. They completely understand, and that do exactly what we asked, keeping him there for a whole week, and then giving us a detailed plan over what he can or cannot eat, drink, etc. They also inform us that he has to go on a walk every day because his muscles have weakened greatly after spending so long in bed.
This was roughly 3 weeks ago, and when he got sent home, he seemed like himself again. He was feeling well, though he complained about having to go out on walks, and only ended up doing it once because of how stubborn he is. For nearly a week, he was the same old dad that we all knew. Sunday evening, my mom and dad went to visit my uncle - my dad's brother, and talk about the entire situation. Near the end of the evening, my dad was feeling tired, sluggish, and even threw up once - though, we kind of expected this, because the medication still made him nauseous. They both come back home and decide to go to bed.
Around 3 AM, my mom wakes up and sees my dad sitting on the side of his bed. She asks what he's doing, and he just says he's been out to pee, but he'd like a glass of water. She goes to the kitchen, fills up a glass, then returns to the bedroom and lets him have his water. They both go back to sleep.
The next morning, around 6:30 AM, I go to leave for work. I hear my dad coughing from the bedroom, but I know my mom's with him and will take care of him if anything happens, so I make my way to work. Around 8:14 AM while at work, I get a message saying my dad's been picked up by an ambulance once again.
This day was probably the worst day of my entire life up until this point. At around 7:20 AM, my mom woke up to the sound of my dad vomiting. She saw as he repeatedly vomited in his sleep, and as she tried to wake him up, he didn't respond. Immediately knowing something is wrong, she called 112 (Danish Emergency Number) and they sent an ambulance right away, lights and sirens. Luckily, my dad had been laying on his side in his sleep, 'cause if he had been on his back, he would've choked and drowned in his own vomit.
The ambulance arrives and the paramedics waste no time getting my dad inside the ambulance. They inform my mom and sister to not follow them, but just drive at their own pace to the hospital, because they'll be driving Code 3 back to the nearest hospital.
I don't know much of what happened between 8:14 and 13:30 (roughly), which is when I finally arrived at the hospital. What I do know is that they informed my family that my dad is in a liver coma, he's unresponsive, and they don't know when he'll wake up. One piece of shit doctor in particular even said "He's either going to die, or he won't".
When I arrive, he's still unresponsive. For that entire section of the hospital, only one nurse is assigned to every patient at the time we arrived. One nurse to deal with all the patients, one being my dying dad.
We stayed for the entire day and repeatedly asked, even begged them to put my dad into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) so there'd be someone to take care of him 24/7, because despite being in a coma, he'd sit up and try pulling out the drip in his arm, and even get out of the bed. They refused, which genuinely makes no sense, considering one of the doctors even said he's "either going to die, or he won't".
We also begged for them to transfer him to the hospital up north that he was previously at, since we supposedly had a deal with a chief physician up there to take him there if anything happens since they have all the information about his situation and they're more suited to take care of him. Then, the hospital he was currently at told us that the other hospital said they couldn't take him since they didn't have enough beds - which I genuinely believe is absolute bullshit. The hospital up north is massive, and I doubt they have a shortage of beds.
They end up moving him to another section, this time with two nurses taking care of 24 patients, which isn't exactly a great improvement. I'm not saying the nurses themselves aren't doing a good job, because they are, but the hospital is just seriously understaffed. As they refused to put my dad into the ICU, my mom ended up staying the night by his side. She'd have to stay awake all throughout the night, as my dad would try pulling out the drip in his arm every 15 minutes, and she'd have to push him back down on the bed as well.
None of us expected him to survive the night.
My dad remained in a liver coma for around 26 hours, before finally waking up again on Tuesday morning last week. When he woke up he was disoriented, confused. He genuinely had no idea where he was, or who the people - us, his family - standing before him were. We stayed for a while, and I watched as my dad wept to himself as he finally realized exactly where he was. He'd gone to sleep on a Sunday, expecting everything to be alright, before waking up on a Tuesday in pain and in a hospital bed.
Thankfully, he came to his senses and gradually got less disoriented. He could remember us, knew where he was, and could manage to hold a conversation.
They had to put him on a nutrition drip because he barely ate anything, if at all. Even today, he rarely eats much, only just managing to eat a bit of porridge with cream. He's also started physical therapy/training in an attempt for him to strengthen his muscles once again, in hope that he can walk on his own, as he can barely walk unassisted at the moment.
They planned to send him back home to us on the 7th of August. You have no idea how angry we got, especially my mom who was the only one present when they said this. She told all of them off, repeatedly saying that there's no way he could get home if he still has to get a nutrition drip. After a long and stern talking to, she finally managed to convince a doctor to let him stay, and instead do a controlled trial-run to see how well he'd do without the nutrition drip and the other stuff that they can only give him at the hospital. He had to eat on his own, and eat enough for him to actually get near what his daily intake should be.
Within less than 24 hours of being taken off all of these things, my dad had to call for a nurse because he could barely breathe and had fluids in his lungs. At this point, they finally sent him to the hospital up north, where he is now and they've started taking care of him. He's supposed to start dialysis soon which'll improve his kidneys, and we won't have to deal with both his liver and kidneys fucking him up at once.
This is all that's happened so far. I aim to update this post whenever something new happens.
Some of you may already know about this after reading the stuff I've previously posted in the shoutbox regarding all of this. Anyway, to get to the point, my dad is sick. Very sick. This has affected not just his own life, but the lives of the people around him as well. I've been quite depressed recently, and had to take over a week off of work due to a recent incident regarding his sickness.
I thought I'd make this post to keep everyone up to speed as I obviously see a lot of people care, wishing for his best every time I give updates on his condition in the shoutbox and whatnot. I'm also making this post because I can't keep answering the questions I get regarding how he's doing, how I've been, etc. because it's too stressful and draining. Anyway, I'll go right back to the beginning.
A little over two months ago, my dad was suffering from some back pains that gradually got worse and worse, to the point he couldn't really do any manual labor and would always ask me, my sister or my mom for help in doing anything. At this point, all of us had already told him to go to a doctor and get it looked at, but being as stubborn as he is, he decided not to go. His back kept hurting more and more, and we started to see his stomach swell up as well. He'd stop getting out of bed, always felt cold, and would be sleeping nearly all day. We were getting tired of telling him to go to his doctor, so we contacted one of my sisters who's a nurse at one of the largest and most specialized hospitals in the country. Thankfully, my dad is smart enough to listen to her when she tells him to go to the doctor, so one day, he finally decides to go.
Not even an hour passes after he's gone to his doctor, and he's already been hospitalized at the closest hospital. At this point, they've discovered he has around 7 liters worth of fluid in his stomach that his body hasn't been able to pass the natural way, so they obviously decided to drain it all. He then spent a while at the same hospital as they tried to figure out exactly what might've caused this, and they were suspecting some liver damage he was previously diagnosed with. He's eventually moved to another hospital, and they start to suspect that he's suffering from liver failure, or at the very least, late stage liver damage. It's at this point they also figure out his kidneys are not functioning properly, and they diagnose him with kidney failure as well.
For some reason, the geniuses at the hospital decide to send him home and give him an appointment at yet another hospital that's supposed to be more specialized and have the right staff as well as equipment for his situation. At this point, there's 2 weeks until this appointment, so he just has to stay at home and be careful with what he eats, drinks and whatnot. It's already obvious at this point that he'll have to take medication for the rest of his life, so that's already started at this point, although he medication does make him kind of sick as well and he often ends up throwing it back up.
A few days pass by with no real issues. He's still tired and doesn't really get out of bed, but that is to be expected. His belly once again started to bloat up, though not as noticeable as last time. Then, one morning, as my mom gets home from work, she sees my dad standing in the middle of the kitchen, searching through our cabinets. She asks what he's looking for, to which he simply responds "soap". At this point he's searched throughout the house and even one of the cars outside, and has for some reason collected our washing machine pods on the living room table - one of which was out of its packaging, and taken a bite of. My mother quickly gets worried and tries talking to my dad, and noticing his speech is completely intelligible and anything he does manage to say is absolute gibberish, she decides to ask if he remembers his social security number, which he didn't. She decided to ask if he knows who she is, and he couldn't answer the question. She then decides to call his doctor and asks what to do, and his doctor proceeds to send an ambulance to our home in order to pick him up.
When the paramedics arrive, he's starting to come to his senses. He is still completely disoriented and even mistook my mom for one of my brothers, but at least he could say his social security number. The paramedics bring him out in the ambulance, and drive him to yet another hospital. My mom and I follow along right behind them as they aren't driving with lights or anything on. We finally arrive at the hospital and my mom runs inside with the paramedics while I go park the car.
When I finally get into the room with my mom and dad, they are about to take my dad away to do some tests and a CT-scan, to make sure it isn't a stroke, and they end up finding nothing. They basically tell us "we have no idea how this happened but it's gone now" and after 4 hours, tell us to go home. What they didn't know is that my dad had suffered from a liver coma, a result of the liver being unable to remove toxins from the blood, and as a result, the toxins are sent to the brain, which can also cause brain damage, something that becomes rather apparent to us when he's back home as he doesn't really act or feel like himself.
We decide to wait until his appointment at another hospital, and when he's finally there, my mom ends up having to explain everything we've already gone through once again since this is the 4th hospital he's been at, but they apparently don't really share medical records for their patients, so they genuinely don't know exactly what he's been through so far. They notice his bloated belly, and his stomach is once again drained for fluids, this time a total of 11 liters, making it roughly 18 liters worth of fluid so far. They tell us that the previous incident was a liver coma, and they start preparing new medication for him, as apparently his current medication wasn't properly prescribed, and he needed some different stuff.
We beg and plead for them to keep him there for as long as possible to figure out some kind of treatment and diet for him, so that we can avoid having to experience yet another one of these liver comas, especially since it's unlikely he'll survive going through that once again. They completely understand, and that do exactly what we asked, keeping him there for a whole week, and then giving us a detailed plan over what he can or cannot eat, drink, etc. They also inform us that he has to go on a walk every day because his muscles have weakened greatly after spending so long in bed.
This was roughly 3 weeks ago, and when he got sent home, he seemed like himself again. He was feeling well, though he complained about having to go out on walks, and only ended up doing it once because of how stubborn he is. For nearly a week, he was the same old dad that we all knew. Sunday evening, my mom and dad went to visit my uncle - my dad's brother, and talk about the entire situation. Near the end of the evening, my dad was feeling tired, sluggish, and even threw up once - though, we kind of expected this, because the medication still made him nauseous. They both come back home and decide to go to bed.
Around 3 AM, my mom wakes up and sees my dad sitting on the side of his bed. She asks what he's doing, and he just says he's been out to pee, but he'd like a glass of water. She goes to the kitchen, fills up a glass, then returns to the bedroom and lets him have his water. They both go back to sleep.
The next morning, around 6:30 AM, I go to leave for work. I hear my dad coughing from the bedroom, but I know my mom's with him and will take care of him if anything happens, so I make my way to work. Around 8:14 AM while at work, I get a message saying my dad's been picked up by an ambulance once again.
This day was probably the worst day of my entire life up until this point. At around 7:20 AM, my mom woke up to the sound of my dad vomiting. She saw as he repeatedly vomited in his sleep, and as she tried to wake him up, he didn't respond. Immediately knowing something is wrong, she called 112 (Danish Emergency Number) and they sent an ambulance right away, lights and sirens. Luckily, my dad had been laying on his side in his sleep, 'cause if he had been on his back, he would've choked and drowned in his own vomit.
The ambulance arrives and the paramedics waste no time getting my dad inside the ambulance. They inform my mom and sister to not follow them, but just drive at their own pace to the hospital, because they'll be driving Code 3 back to the nearest hospital.
I don't know much of what happened between 8:14 and 13:30 (roughly), which is when I finally arrived at the hospital. What I do know is that they informed my family that my dad is in a liver coma, he's unresponsive, and they don't know when he'll wake up. One piece of shit doctor in particular even said "He's either going to die, or he won't".
When I arrive, he's still unresponsive. For that entire section of the hospital, only one nurse is assigned to every patient at the time we arrived. One nurse to deal with all the patients, one being my dying dad.
We stayed for the entire day and repeatedly asked, even begged them to put my dad into the ICU (Intensive Care Unit) so there'd be someone to take care of him 24/7, because despite being in a coma, he'd sit up and try pulling out the drip in his arm, and even get out of the bed. They refused, which genuinely makes no sense, considering one of the doctors even said he's "either going to die, or he won't".
We also begged for them to transfer him to the hospital up north that he was previously at, since we supposedly had a deal with a chief physician up there to take him there if anything happens since they have all the information about his situation and they're more suited to take care of him. Then, the hospital he was currently at told us that the other hospital said they couldn't take him since they didn't have enough beds - which I genuinely believe is absolute bullshit. The hospital up north is massive, and I doubt they have a shortage of beds.
They end up moving him to another section, this time with two nurses taking care of 24 patients, which isn't exactly a great improvement. I'm not saying the nurses themselves aren't doing a good job, because they are, but the hospital is just seriously understaffed. As they refused to put my dad into the ICU, my mom ended up staying the night by his side. She'd have to stay awake all throughout the night, as my dad would try pulling out the drip in his arm every 15 minutes, and she'd have to push him back down on the bed as well.
None of us expected him to survive the night.
My dad remained in a liver coma for around 26 hours, before finally waking up again on Tuesday morning last week. When he woke up he was disoriented, confused. He genuinely had no idea where he was, or who the people - us, his family - standing before him were. We stayed for a while, and I watched as my dad wept to himself as he finally realized exactly where he was. He'd gone to sleep on a Sunday, expecting everything to be alright, before waking up on a Tuesday in pain and in a hospital bed.
Thankfully, he came to his senses and gradually got less disoriented. He could remember us, knew where he was, and could manage to hold a conversation.
They had to put him on a nutrition drip because he barely ate anything, if at all. Even today, he rarely eats much, only just managing to eat a bit of porridge with cream. He's also started physical therapy/training in an attempt for him to strengthen his muscles once again, in hope that he can walk on his own, as he can barely walk unassisted at the moment.
They planned to send him back home to us on the 7th of August. You have no idea how angry we got, especially my mom who was the only one present when they said this. She told all of them off, repeatedly saying that there's no way he could get home if he still has to get a nutrition drip. After a long and stern talking to, she finally managed to convince a doctor to let him stay, and instead do a controlled trial-run to see how well he'd do without the nutrition drip and the other stuff that they can only give him at the hospital. He had to eat on his own, and eat enough for him to actually get near what his daily intake should be.
Within less than 24 hours of being taken off all of these things, my dad had to call for a nurse because he could barely breathe and had fluids in his lungs. At this point, they finally sent him to the hospital up north, where he is now and they've started taking care of him. He's supposed to start dialysis soon which'll improve his kidneys, and we won't have to deal with both his liver and kidneys fucking him up at once.
This is all that's happened so far. I aim to update this post whenever something new happens.
