How It All Started

On January 6, 2009 dad had an AAA which is an Abdominal Aeortic Aneurysm repair. Basically they installed 4 stints and repaired the aneurysm. Dad was in the hospital for about a week and then went home.

Approximately 3 weeks ago today 3/20 dad had an accidental fall at the house. He was getting up from a chair and his slippers slipped out from underneath him. This caused him to fall frontwards on his abdomen and chest area. Dad was in pain but thought it would go away. He was in a lot of pain and nauseas during that time but thought he would get better. He did not eat much or drink much during that time. Almost 2 weeks went by when the pain and shortness of breath got so bad he got Josh (grandson), who is living with him to take to the emergency room at 2 a.m. Dad explained what had happened and that he had abdominal pain, shortness of breath, and dark urine. He also told them as always that he was born with only one kidney. At the hospital they only took a chest xray, an abdominal xray, and rib xray. They then sent dad home with pain medicine and a flowair inhaler as if he had respiratory problem. Had they ran some lab work on him they would have discovered that his kidney and liver counts were abnormal. That is small town medical care for you.

On Saturday afternoon, just 36 hours after being discharged from the 1st ER visit, my nephew called and said he was worried about Dad and something was wrong. I knew nothing of any of the events of the last two weeks until this moment. When talking to dad, I first thought he had a stroke because he was not making much sense and was struggling to breathe. Then I got my wife on the phone with us on speaker and after a series of questions, we realized he was having some kidney failure symptoms, dehydrated and something major going on besides general muscle soreness from a 2 week old fall. We had him go back to the E.R. but this time Sandy (my wife) called up there and talked with the head ER nurse and gave some specifics on what we wanted evaluated.

About 2:30 A.M. We got word that he was being admitted to ICU for kidney failure and that his liver was showing abnormally high levels indicating damage and possible failure. We packed our bags and headed to Leesville, LA.