John Hark

Hospital Trip to Tulsa 3/7/08 - 3/12/08

The Pulmonologists (lung doctor) looked at his x-rays and said they are so abnormal you don't know what you are looking at.  Is it mass density?  Scar tissue left over from radiation and chemo? Fluid?  Hmmm...?

Dad (step, since i was young baby but not always in the picture ) had anywhere from 6-8 IV's hooked up to him.  After the coma-induced state which allowed doctors to hook him up to life support, he then went to a moderately-low sedation and we were able to communicate with him pretty well via direct questioning and his ability to shake head yes or no or use his eyebrows or shrug his shoulders.  We even helped him begin to write out the word coffee- the hospital has computerized keypads with oversized letters, that really didn't work so Christy held pen inbetween his fingers while i held a make-shift desk and we accumulated the letters C...O... when i guessed he wanted coffee.  He was getting caffeine headaches.  Between caffeine and nicotine withdrawals, the doctors apparently put a nicotine patch on him. 

Nurses pricked his fingers 24x's per day to monitor his blood sugar levels hourly.  Insulin was one of the IV bags.  Looking Eithopian skinny, intravenous feeding provided nutrients although a few attempts to feed through the mouth tube were made but his stomach wasn't wanting to do this yet causing his residuals to go up to or past a hundred.  Doctors will work on getting his gut to do the work later, after clearing up some other stuff.

He carried no fever, he urinated very regularly, he didn't want any pain med's every time we asked him about pain.  He didn't want the sedation turned up, he likes the company and hearing us took away the boredom and lonliness.

Due to high white blood cell count yet current testing coming back negative, puzzled doctors decided to do a bronchoscopy: visual exam of the tracheobronchial tree using tubular or flexible fiberoptic scope.  The scope would be inserted through one of the life support tubes, allowing foreign properties to be suctioned (washings) then be tested and hopefully diagnosed.  This worked.  It worked better then testing vials of blood samples.  So it wasn't a blot clot, or double pneumonia, it was pseudomonas: bateria that includes several free-living species of soil and water & some opportunistic pathogens.  2 of the 3 antibiotics were suited to treat this and he was already on these before doctors learned this but one of them caused arrhythmia (irregular heart beat) and the other wasn't working ( drug-resistant) even though it was a proper prescription to fight pseudomonas.  After changing the antibiotic to something compatible with his body that could also fight to kill bateria found in his right lung, his condition is now improving.  This morning Christy told me he is even more alert and they are now looking to ween him off of life support within the next couple days.  The Pulmonologist today said he is getting better.

Straight up, before i left, and asking the senior staff doctor, "is he going to live or die, let's talk about the hard thing,"  she admitted he was in bad shape but he was stable, and we're looking at a couple of 3 weeks to see a long healing process.  And she said she didn't know what double pneumonia is, that she would ask her dad.  (Didn't ask her but from the discussion maybe us lay people made that word up...?)  Did learn that Brenda (RN, the nurse i liked) attended Evangel in earlier years, which is nice cause before learning this told her we were talking about her not only being able to do her job well but also having a nice spirit and that the love was there in her.  We really enjoyed her company- the good talks and peace she brought.

When discussing with Christy & Jimmy what is my choice should he take a turn for the worst, do we resusitate or not, my answer is "Yes."  Never do you want to leave your conscience comprised with the question of.... what if... i had only...  If you chose death then where does Sovereignty play it's role?  I would be telling God, You don't get to heal him because we're done... it's too expensive, he doesn't have a good quality life anyway, he's eventually going to die from it so what's the point?  Yet God is a God of  miracles and God could heal him if He wants to, and it would be much easier for me to live with the fact that i chose life even though Sovereignty decided to let him die then letting my conscience regret chosing death because of all the logical reasonings.  I can't live with regret and i don't know what Sovereignty wants to do, but by chosing life, even if he dies, this can be lived with much better than trying to live with "what if i had only"  or "what if God would have healed him."   Leaving my conscience compromised or in a state of possible regret is very unappealing but every time i chose Life there is this peace there so this is what i chose to follow.

It's all in God's Hands, we're not unrealistic with the state of his health but God will always chose Life each and everytime, and no matter how much things cost or the quality of life that is there, God is a God of Life.