First, a sincere thank you to everyone for the kind words, thoughts, prayers, etc.
The situation with my father has changed a bit, so here's an update. Instead of putting in the new pacemaker/defibrilator yesterday, they sent Dad home to heal up some and get stronger. They've rescheduled the new install for a month from now. I had mentioned before that they planned to have him sleep at home with a full oxygen mask (a CPAP machine, actually). This plan had to be changed. Dad's shingles outbreak includes a patch on the right side of his face, cheekbone near the nose to jawline to ear, and every CPAP mask they've tried causes him quite intense pain. So instead, he'll be sleeping with an oxygen tube under his nose (fortunately there's a space amidst his shingles that allows the tube to go across his face if they angle it just right). They have also decided to keep him on oxygen during the day. So for now he's tethered to the O2 machine in his bedroom by a 100 foot airhose, and when he wants to go further away from that he has to use a portable oxygen tank. They gave him four, each with a 6 to 8 hour supply, refillable as needed. Apparently there is some disagreement as to what exactly constitutes "servicing" his pacemaker. It was very thoroughly checked out at least once every six months my his cardiologist, and she had made the determination that it did not need a replacement battery yet. It will be... interesting... to see where this leads. Both Mom and Dad are in surprisingly good spirits considering everything that's going on. One of my sisters lives with them so she can keep a close watch on what's going on, and my other sister (the nurse) lives only about 5 minutes away and stops by almost daily to check up on them. So things are not quite as tight timewise for me right now, which will let me continue to participate here a bit more than I had expected, at least for the next month. Reggie Bautista _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
