my dad...

[DISCLAIMER: this post is mostly for me. just so that I can have a record of what happened before I forget all the details. it may be choppy and only make sense to me...but I’ll get it]
Monday Sept 28, 2009 it was about 4:30 and I was at work. I received a phone call from my aunt and she told me that my dad was about to have heart surgery and that they found aneurysms in his abdomen! my boss told me to leave and not to come back tomorrow. so I went home and met my sister and we drove to Daly city with just that info. on the way out there we picked up my nephew Jacob on the way. we got to seton hospital and met my auntie Terri, auntie minang, uncle Reggie, auntie Marilyn, brother Jon and nephew Julian who were in the small family waiting room. my auntie Terri had recapped to us what happened. you know how when the mailman comes to drop off a package and no one is home; they leave one of those slips that say that you have to go to the post office to pick it up? well my dad got off of work at like 1 and went to the post office to pick up the package. and all I was told at this point is that he was rushed to the hospital from there. as the night went on more and more people arrived, the rollmans[randy, Margie, baron and brage], uncle bobby and auntie julie, auntie chong, uncle freddie and tess, uncle victor, auntie beth and anna, greg, marie, frederick, jasmina and my brother david showed up from carmel too. the surgeon came out and spoke to the 4 of us kids and told us that they did a quadruple heart bypass and that we could go in to see him in about an hour but he would still be asleep. also while they had him in the emergency room he flat lined and they had to paddle him back to life. it was only one time though. the hour passed but it seemed like it was FOREVER!!!! they let us in 2 at a time. so nena and jon went 1st and they came out sooner than I would have thought. next david and I went in and I almost fell apart. I have never seen my dad like that. no one should ever have to see their parents like that. tubes everywhere, machines with tubes in him helping him breathe blood everywhere...it was sad. the nurse bella came in and we talked to her. she agreed to call me the second he woke up since he probably wouldn't wake up till 6am the next morning. by this time it was maybe 1030? the nurse was asking us a bunch of info and it REALLY upset me for some reason. the fact that she was asking me if he was a donor, who was in charge of his estate, who is supposed to make the calls, what he wants if he passes...I didn't like it at all! as far as I knew he was laying there from his operation and recovering! and here she was asking me death questions. I understand why she did it; it just didn't sit well with me and the time. my aunts and uncles went in and they saw him...they had all seen him in this condition before when he had his leg accident about 30 years ago. finally it was about 1120 and there was nothing else we could do so we left. oh! once they let me and david in, I searched through my dad’s belongings to find the slip the post office had left to see which post office his truck was at since there are many post offices in Daly city. so my brothers went to get his truck at the only post office they didn’t think to go look at and they brought his Yukon home. everyone left and my sister and I were the last ones to leave. I was on the san Mateo bridge driving home about 11:40 when I got a call from my brother saying that he went back to get his own car that was at the hospital still and he went in to check on my dad one last time before he left. and he said when he walked in the room, my dads hand was moving and he had woken up. the 1st thing my dad did was miming driving. david said, its ok I have your truck. my dad then reached for where his wallet would have been on his body, and david said, its ok, cristina has your stuff, the nurse signed it all out to her. the nurse came in and sedated him since he wasn’t supposed to have woken up till 6 the next morning. I was gonna turn around once I reached jackson, but he told me don’t bother cuz visiting hours were over and he would just be asleep anyway. my brother and I decided that we needed that. we needed to know that our dad was ok. by david being able to see my dad awake for even just a few minutes, it gave us peace of mind knowing he'd be ok.
we were told that the next morning before any of us arrived to the hospital my dad awoke and the 1st thing he said was he asked the nurse if he had any visitors while he was out. she sorta chuckled at him and said, only your whole family. my brothers arrived and surprisingly enough he remembered everything! except for the whole flat line thing of course. when I arrived he told me everything.
he said...when he was driving to the post office he was getting dizzy and sleepy. so when he parked he sat in the truck for a few minutes. when he felt better, he started walking into the post office but his prosthesis wouldn’t move so he sorta hopped up the steps. when he got into the post office he leaned against the wall and sat on the floor where he then threw up and asked someone to call 911 since his chest was hurting. a man called 911 and the ambulance took him a few blocks up to seton which is a cardiac specialty hospital. he was taken to the ER and was totally coherent talking to the dr there. he was telling him about the package and his family then all of a sudden he flat lines. they paddled him and took him to the operating room. also that morning before any of us had arrived a doctor walked in and said, good morning Mr. baron how are you feeling? and my dad recognized his voice but didn’t know why. apparently the doctor/specialist that did the graft on his leg [to take the vain outta his leg for his heart] was the same guy who was in the post office who called 911. he was on his lunch break and was picking something up from the post office. someone was totally looking out for my dad.
that's mostly the chaotic part... he's recovering well. when I was in there the nurse was unwrapping his leg to check on the swelling or bruising since normally when they take a vein outta your leg there is a lot of bruising. turns out my dad doesn’t bruise. he heals really well.
they moved him wednesday night about 10 pm to the 6th floor which is the heart floor and about 4:00pm thursday they moved him to kaiser.
i asked the surgeon about the aneurysms and he told me that his concern at the moment was his heart. but they will be monitoring this abdomen once he recovers. turns out my grandpa, my dads dad died of a heart attack and aneurysms! scary!!!!

if you actually read this...way to go you!!! thanks for muscling through it.