Let My Father Go Home, Lord

After the last scare, we received not-so-great news from the doctors, that my father had blood clots or 'old blood' in him, the remains of the internal bleeding.

The doctor gave us 4 options:

1) leave the blood clots in there and risk getting infection
2) have a CT scan to check where it is located
3) insert a thicker tube to, hopefully, drain the clots out
4) inject medicine to dissolve the blood clots and, hopefully, drain them out via the existing tube. However, there are risks involved, with excessive bleeding and immediate collapse being the most serious ones.

My father was sick and tired of having surgeries and procedures done on him.

He opted for '4' and we were fine with it.

The first day the medicine went in, about 650 to 700 ml of old blood was drained out.

The lung physician estimated that about 1 litre of blood clots were in there, so he suggested injecting the medicine a second time to get the remaining of them out, and if nothing else came out, they would have done whatever that could be done, and the tube would come off him. The risk of having excessive bleeding remained.

My father agreed.

Today, another 55 ml of old blood got drained out in the morning.

The doctor said that the tube would be removed tomorrow, and we could discuss discharge with the doctor-in-charge.

My father can't wait to go home. It's been more than a month since he was admitted to the hospital.

However, the doctors advised us to send him to a community hospital to 'rehabilitate' him. They surmised that he would not be able to walk or go about the daily activities independently yet by the time he is discharged.

It occurred to me that my father hasn't heard about this, but he would certainly feel sad that he couldn't go home.

He has been trying very hard to recover. When he was asked to walk with a walking aid during his physiotherapy, he walked very fast for a patient who had not been down the bed for a month.

I am quite optimistic that he could go home though, at the rate he is going.