I never would have thought my life could have change this drastically in less than 2 hours. On April 22, 2011 around 4:30 pm my world fell apart. Dad had been outside working in the yard, when he came inside, white as a sheep, complaining of pain in his head. He laid on the couch and mom gave him some aspirin and took his blood pressure. When it reached 200, she sat it down and went to get her stuff to take Dad to the ER. Not 2 minutes later, Dad looked up at me and said, "Anna Kathryn, something is not right... call an ambulance." 1 hour later, we find out he has cerebral bleeding and it is very serious. They incubate him and Med-Flight him to Little Rock and inform us he will go to surgery ASAP. Our dear family friends, the Freemans, drove Mom and Caroline and I drove myself, Gracie and Brett. We arrived around 10 pm and they ended up not starting Surgery until 2 AM. What a loooong night/morning that was. Before he went into surgery, the Dr's told us this was very serious and he may not make it. This was definitely not what we wanted to hear. An hour into the surgery, we got a call that everything was going smoothly, then 30 minutes later the DR came out and said all went well. Praise the lord!!!!
I can't take credit for the updates I'm posting below! My parents sweet friends, Mike and Evelyn Irwin emailed these updates out. I have started on an update from day one, but have fallen asleep each time I sit down to write it! Hopefully this will catch everyone up.
Jack had a bad headache Thursday night and Friday and he knew something wasn't right. He went to our hospital Friday afternoon about 5 and was Med-Flighted to UAMS shortly thereafter.
8:00 Saturday morning:
They did surgery on Jack at 2:00 last night and found a blood clot at the base of the brain, probably caused by High Blood Pressure. They sent it off to be sure.
He is sedated and intubated . They will gradually remove the sedation today to see if there is any movement. They don't know the amount of damage. Even if he moves to fight the intubation, that is a good sign--any movement would be wonderful. They are going to do another CAT scan today to see if there is any bleeding. He still has a tube in his brain.
10:00 Saturday morning:
Jack is alert, has moved fingers and toes, eyes open and gave a thumbs up sign.
BP is still high, but they are working on that
7:00 Saturday evening:
They did another CAT scan on Jack at 3:00. They told Dicey if anything was wrong, they would let her know soon. She has not heard from the scan is taking that as good news. Jack is still fighting the intubation, which is good. He is responding well. In about 16 hours they will take the tubes out and be able to evaluate him better at that time.
All three of their children were home when Jack got sick and all went to Little Rock. Their grandchild has been in Benton with Dicey's family. They have had family with them and Jack's brother has gotten there.
Jack is at UAMS.
