Dad in ICU

2012/2/8 Wed 2:10pm

As I was teaching my colleagues in a training course at ITRI, I recevied a phone call from my uncle (2nd). It was a reminicent incident from the 1/14 day call I received when both parents were in a serious car accident. Such call during the day was always rare and often rang bell for uncertainties. It turned out that my dad was sent into the surgery operation room few minutes ago. The mission was to drain blood clogs on his right side of the head which was due to the 1/14 car accident. I was clearly shocked by the timing as mom called me earlier that both dad and my uncle were just checking with docotor that day. Even with all the emotions running inside of my head, I just prayed to God as I hung up the phone in the hall way outside of the classroom. Knowing that I would need to hand to God's care again as in last accident, I did not tell my training class students but made some phone calls and emails to my secretary and others that I would need to head to Kaohsiung after class is over, and would also need to take the rest of the week off. I then completed the training class teaching half an hour earlier before driving to High Speed Rail Station at Hsinchu at 4:30pm. I prayed out loud continuously as I was driving.

2012/2/8 Wed 4:45pm
As I got off parking the car on the street, it was drizzling a bit. In order to catch the train around 5pm which was the earliest train before another 30 minutes for the next train, I began to run with heavy bag and computer inside the bag. Age does catch up with people. I was running softly but still had to stop and walk a few times to catch some air. The road was slippery for my shoes from work. Luckily when I got to the station, the next train was 5:10pm and no one was in the line for me to purchase the ticket.

2012/2/8 Wed 7:15pm
A lot of phone calls with mom and my uncle before I finally got to the 5F ICU at Chang Gung Hospital. I got off the elevator and was immediately called by my uncle and Ms. Chang who is currently working at Dad's office. They had been waiting just outside of the ICU waiting for the next visiting hour at 8pm. Learned that Dad's operation was successful and taking roughly from 2pm to 4:30pm that day with preparation time included. The operation itself was less than two hours. My uncle said that my Dad's head was shaved and two holes were drilled to let the blood out. He told me several details about Dad was feeling his left foot getting out of control. Meanwhile CT scan read by Hospital's ex-President Wang and Jack indicated immediate surgery would be needed.

2012/2/8 Wed 8pm

Finally saw my dad in ICU room. It was not a pretty sight but not for the bandage and tube around Dad's head which was shaved for the first time. He also had urine tube installed and diaper wrapped as he lied helplessly in bed. But it was painful to see Dad's tears rolling in his eyes as he probably went through quite a bit of turmoil during the day. However, another docotor Wang was there to comfort her and the nurses in the ICU area were quite helpful. It was good to see Dad was conscious and could talk and remember details without difficulty. He could also feel and move his hands and feet which meant the surgery was successful in reliving his symptons before the surgery.

2012/2/8 Wed 9pm
Before I left the ICU room, I asked Dad that I would like to pray together with him. I thanked God for taking care of him through the treatment of doctors and nurses. I asked for His peace to be with him throughout the recovery phase. Afterwards I saw more traits of tears in his eyes. I barely could stop mine as it was the first time I had such prayer with him. I knew every moment was precious in our hearts.

Since I could not stay at ICU after the 30 minutes visiting hours, I took the taxi home to bring back some blankets and essentials in order to stay near ICU that night. On my way home, I looked for a few stores to find some disposalble contact lenses and bought some other amenities since I came directly from work. When getting home, I comforted my mom about the situation being in good status as she had been worried sick at home. She had been in recovery phase from 1/14 accident. I knew she wished she could have been at Dad's side to take care of him. Upon returning to hospital's resting areas for patients' relatives around 11pm, I saw my worried relatives and friends staying at the resting room. It was a room without windows with about 10 bunk bends. Some people have their luggages on the floor. Each bunk bed had a sliding curtain for privacy. Each bed had a small cabinet for storage. If not for the sentiment for the patients, I would say the small room was clean with sufficient functions like bathroom, shower room and sink. But the whole room was dead quite even with most bunk beds being occupied. Every hour a nurse would come in for regular check. They said if something urgent at night, nurses would come into the room to call on respective relatives or call via mobile phones. Luckily the first night went without any disturbance of urgent calls.

2012/2/9 Thu
The ICU had fixed hours of visiting at 11am, 2pm and 8pm. But one relative at a time was able to go into the ICU room during meals. Since my Dad was not able to eat for the first afternoon and the next morning, I was simply hanging around outside of the ICU area. Uncle came during the late morning. Dad's situation seemed to be improving by the hour. By lunch time he was able to eat the food that I bought from basement. But he wanted to walk as he was tired of laying in bed for too long.

Today was Gioia's birthday. Called her in the morning to wish her happy birthday. Was planning on buying her birthday present the night before, which was before I recieved the phone call about Dad's being sent into operation room.

In the morning Dad was allowed to eat for the first time since operation the day before. I bought some fish soup and rice porridge. Dad likes to eat fish but he is not too good with the fish bones. I stood right by him to take pieces of fish off their bones. Very often that I would feed him with bones hidden and he would spit off the whole chunk. Several meals later I became not only better at separating fish meat and bones, but better at buying fish with fewer bones. It was the first time that I feed my Dad spoon by spoon. Sort of wondering what the scenes are like when Dad and Mom were feeding me and brothers when we were babies and kids. It's a similar situation when people are small and young vs. old and wiser. Just that the sentiment is totally different.

The day went on with uncle (2nd) and aunt (third) coming by again to check up on Dad. Visiting from relatives is a great source of comfort despite distances in living location and personality. From another perspective, it's people who are sixty-something visiting seventy-something. This is one of the situations that one-child policy would have disadvantage when it comes to caring for the elders. More important for aging society to improve the whole caring system.

Dad took another CT scan around 1pm. Uncle and I waited for 4 hours outside of ICU as we were led that the result would be out soon. Later nurses told us that the doctor reviewed the results between his time with surgery and clinics, and saw no issues to report to us. Guess no news was good news although they could have told us earlier. Again I went home briefly to take shower before coming back to the resting area next to ICU for the night.

The nurse asked us if we'd be willing to take a double-bed room. She said we could switch to a single room later which was our original request. I knew it was not easy to switch later and Dad might take a bit longer in the hospital for montioring. Therefore I purposely let them know if no single room was available, then we'd let Dad stay in ICU for longer. Also we asked for care attendant but it seemed like they were not sure when we'd get one.

2012/2/10 Fri 2pm

Good news in the morning that Dad was cleared to move to regular room. We also got our wish for single room, thank God. The nurse was great in helping Dad to take an X-rate on his left hand which was swollen a bit due to the 2/14 car accident. The single room took us a while as a lot of relationship was probably leveraged to pull this one through. The view from the room was great and comforting. But the feeling of moving out of ICU to regular room was beyond description.

However, even after pulling all the strings of all the relationship with doctors in the hospital, we were not able to get a 24-hour care attendant that day. I got Mom to help by getting help from Mom's current care attendant's company. Finally we got one coming at 8pm that night as for just one night. She was nice but not caring much about details. But we soon learned that on Sat we'd get another one from the hospital's network. I stayed after 10pm until I felt comfortable with the temp care attendant. It was another prayer that God has answered.

2012/2/11 Sat 8:30am

Doctor checking in and said Dad's IV and tube on the head could be both removed. What a relief to him and us all.

2012/2/12 Sun 10am

Jack just arrived from airport and went home to visit Mom first before coming the hospital. Dad and I were watching Jeremy Lin the Linsanity leading the Knicks to battle the Minnesota Wolfs. It was a comforting scene for Dad to see Jack. The come-from-behind win by the Knicks also was cheerful to us three plus the temp care attendant who probably saw the Harvard Kid playing basketball for the first time. Dad also watched with good attention. It was Knicks' fifth win in a row and Jeremy set a new NBA record for the most points scored as the first 4 starts.

When arriving at home with Jack at night, unfortunatley we learned that Mom's original care attendant would like to quit the next day. She had been taking care of Mom for about a month. She was great with Mom but apparently that asking her to cook and clean house was more than what she normally does in hosptial. Even though we were paying quite a bit each month - more than what we pay some of the PhDs in my institute, she still decided to leave. This meant that we needed to get someone quickly on Monday.

2012/2/13 Mon

Since we had to look for care attendant, Jack went to the hospital to be with Dad. He would be right person to discuss with doctor. I stayed home with Mom to look for care attendant. There were many calls made that morning to friends and brokers for care attendants. We interviewed two that afternoon. But the first one we interviewed had a smoking habbit. The second one was from China without any IDs. After Jack got home at night, I had to leave home to catch high speed rail to come back to Hsinchu for work. Got home at Hsinchu after 11pm. Kept on praying that Mom would get a good care attendant soon. I thought Taiwan needs to review its policy of having foreign workers to do service and manufacturing jobs. It would not help for foreign and domestic skill workforce not able to find helpers at affordable cost. It also would not help the aging population in Taiwan.