Joe’s father needs prayers! (Anyone who doesn’t k…
admin August 24th, 2006
Joe’s father needs prayers!
(Anyone who doesn’t know, Joe is my lovable Canadian boyfriend. You can see pictures of him, along with a host of pictures he and I have taken, by following the “My Sweetie’s Flickr Page” link to the right.)
Anyway, his dad has been in the hospital for just about two weeks now. At first it was pretty routine; he had a heart valve replaced a few years ago, and every so often he has some problems with it. They know him by name at the hospital, and only partly because he’s lived in Chatham all his life and knows half the people in it. Mostly, I gather, it’s because there’s this recurrent issue with his heart. Apparently once in a while the medication he’s on stops being effective and his heartbeat gets irregular (usually the heart starts racing). Joe, feel free to correct me if I’m getting this wrong…
So he went in two weeks ago. They got him on a new medication by phone conferencing with a specialist in London – the Chatham hospital does not even have a dedicated cardiologist, much less someone with this kind of sub-specialization. They got him stabilized. They were going to release him and get him an outpatient appointment with the specialist in London, to discuss a pacemaker.
But then he got one of those nasty hospital infections. So they were dealing with that…etc etc…then they noticed that his legs were swollen. OK, that can be about the heart, especially since with the infection he can’t walk around like he was. Then they noticed that his stomach was a little distended…
They got a CT scan, but since he’s stable they’re not reading it until tomorrow morning. He may have to have surgery; it depends on what the CT says. It could be a lot of things, ranging from a blood clot to a perforated bowel. SO: I will (obviously) be in Chatham this weekend, with less opportunity to blog than usual. (Not that I blog so frequently anyway…) Please consider saying a few prayers for Joe’s dad; his name is Fred.
Thanks… 
