As most of you know, things have been a little crazy in the O'Malley family lately. On Sunday, December 11th Dad was rushed by ambulance to the Emergency Room after having a seizure. He spent 2 days in the Neuro ICU at UW Hospital and then 2 additional days in a general care hospital room. He was treated for ensephilitis which was the cause for the seizure. This is a disease caused by herpes that sits dormant in your cheek (everyone has it). 1 in 100,000 people have a flare up (could be caused by stress) and the cold sore moves forward to your mouth. In my Dad's case the herpes moved up the nerve to his brain causing terrible headaches and ultimately causing the seizure. 95% of cases result in death or coma. He was incredibly lucky. During his hospital stay he had many CT scans of the brain and a full body MRI and unfortunately they also found numerous blood clots in his lungs. He was released from the hospital on Thursday, December 15th and would learn with a Home Health Care team to administer 3 doses of anitbiotics through a Pic line in his arm along with 2 shots of Coumodin, a blood thinner. He was released for 24 hours when a terrible headache came back. He complained that this headache was worse than anything he had experienced before. We gave him his pain killers and nothing was working. At 9:00 pm on Friday, December 16th Mom took him back to the Emergency Room at UW Hospital. They immediately took him back for another CT scan of his brain when they instantly found bleeding in his brain. This bleeding was unfortunately caused by the blood thinners. The disease that caused the seizure weakened the tissue in his brain and the blood thinners were able to impact his brain and eventually cause the bleeding. They tried to reverse the bleeding with plasma, this would be a 24 hour process because the blood thinners were not leaving his system. Saturday, December 17th was the longest day in all of our lives. Dad became weaker and his responses were slower and minimal. We watched the clock closely waiting for 24 hours to pass. At that time they would attempt to insert a ventricular drain in his brain to relieve the pressure and start removing the blood. The procedure didn't produce the immediate results that they were hoping for and within an hour the surgeon was sitting our family down to tell us they'd be performing emergency brain surgery at 9:00 pm Saturday night. Surgery lasted between 2-3 hours and we were happy to hear that he made it out of surgery. It is now 10 days post surgery and things are slowly progressing. His breathing tube was removed on Thursday, December 22nd. At that time he was taken off the profopol which is also called the "milk of amnesia" the same drug Michael Jackson was on. It took some time for the drug to get out of his system. On Saturday, December 24th we were so incredibly happy to hear him say MERRY CHRISTMAS to us. We spent the Christmas Holiday in the ICU at UW Hospital but that's ok, we would do anything to spend the holidays with him.
Everyday is a struggle and we have a long road ahead of us. He is the strongest man I know and his strength shines through everyday. I am so proud of him. We continue to pray for positive results each day. He will still be in the ICU for awhile...more updates to come as he progresses...
Thanks to everyone for all your positive support and prayers. It's incredible to see the love for my Dad. He's incredible...and we tell him everyday!
Family picture taken on my Birthday in April 2011.
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