Miracles Happen Everyday!

I know many of you are wondering how my dad is doing so I thought I would share the events of the past week! It has been a long but rewarding adventure!

Last Wednesday I called my mom to see how she was doing and she told me, "we are in the emergency room". I said, "for you or dad"? And she responded "dad". I was totally shocked. My dad never goes to the doctor even last year when he fell on his roller blades and had a huge gash in his head and was knocked out. He also hurt his wrist and finally went to the doctor 3 weeks later when it wasn't getting better. So I thought it was pretty serious and called all of my siblings. The rest of the day I stayed close to my cell phone. My parents waited 4 hours until they took him back and even at that they didn't have a room so he was in the middle of the hallway. At first they thought he had a serious kidney infection or kidney stones. But after a CT scan they found a collection of infection near his kidneys called seroma. Now was the time to figure out why it was there and how to get rid of it. So they waited and waited and waited in the hospital hallway. My mom was only allowed to go in and see him for 5-10 mins every hour. At about 7:30 on wednesday she went in the hallway to see him. She noticed that his head was swelling about 3X the normal size of his head and he looked horrible. She asked him "honey are you okay", he responded, "no, I think I am going." My mom ran to the nurses station and said I need help I need help. So she grabbed a doctor and they rushed to his care. Within minutes they had 8 people working on him. Between the hour of 7 and 8 there is a doctor change and so there are 2 ER doctors there which was why my dad was saved. They pushed my mom aside and started working on him. His blood pressure dropped and 3 times my mom heard the doctors say, "we've lost him, we've lost him, he is gone." All my mom could see was the blood that my dad was throwing up everywhere. I guess his lungs were filled with blood and all he could do was throw it up to get it out. They were trying to get a breathing tube down his throat but he has phase 4 airway. Which means they can't see anything down his throat so they have to guide the tube blind. Which is very difficult.

They moved him to the ICU unit so they could keep a very close eye on him. Nobody knew what had happened until the next day because my moms cell phone battery died. Earlier in the day I had contacted the Bishop and Relief Society President who said they would do anything to help. Thankfully, the Relief Society President showed up about 30 mins after this all happened and she stayed with my mom until 1am. They wouldn't allow her to go and see him so finally about 6am she decided to go back to the house to charge her phone and get a shower. Once all of us kids knew what happened we all found flights to Tucson. One of my moms best friends drove up to be with her until we all arrived. My brother Ben was the first to arrive, Rob drove from New Mexico, David and Amy arrived at the same time and then I got there about 9:45pm. My sister in law Kristin flew in so she could watch Hinckley while I was at the hospital with my family. She was a lifesaver! As the day progressed they did numerous tests and we had little answers. By the time I got there it was too late to go see him but all of my siblings had gone to surprise him. He had a temperature of 103 and his blood pressure was extremely low. The nurses and doctors could not get the temp to go down and the blood pressure to go up. Within the 10 minutes my siblings were there his temp went down to 101 and his blood pressure went up 10 points. It was truly a miracle! My siblings tried to prepare me for what I would see the next morning but nothing could have prepared me for what I saw. ***writers note*** this is the first time our whole family has been together in 4 years and its been 9 years since our last real family reunion. As I nervously approached the ICU I peeked in the room and fought back the tears. I didn't even recognize him. He was so swollen, his eyes shut, numerous tubes sticking out of his body. He just was there helpless. My siblings told me later that looked MUCH better then he did the night before. I couldn't believe he could have looked worse. Again within the short period we were there his blood pressure went up.

It was a very long day. We all went to lunch as a family and laughed and laughed and laughed about past Shumway adventures. And because dad was in ICU we weren't allowed to stay. So we decided to do some things together like ride bikes, play games, and watch the show Just for Laughs. By Friday night he was out of ICU and in a regular room. It was a very old hospital and dark. The doctors came to the conclusion that about a week prior dad had strep throat and the infection got in his blood stream and found a weak part of his body (where he was healing from prostate cancer). So he underwent a surgery to remove most of the infection and he was put on a couple of strong antibiotics. They actually had to put in a pick line through his neck that went directly to his heart so they could put the antibiotics straight in his body.

There is still a chance that the infection might come back so they are watching him closely. He is still in the hospital and has a long road to recover. He is very weak but he is trying to get his strength back. It was interesting because last Sunday on the front page of the Tucson newspaper was a story about a 39 year old who died in the ER waiting room a couple weeks before. He died of the same exact thing my dad had. They waited 8 hours in the ER and by the time they called him back blood had filled his lungs and he died. His wife kept begging for help but they kept telling her to go and sit down. What a nightmare. What is wrong with America?

I will try to keep things updated!