Saturday, April 11, 2009

A record of the scariest time one could experience.

So today is Saturday, April 11th, 2009. It is currently 10:13 Pm and I am sitting on the couch at St. Joseph's Hospital on Peachtree Dunwoody. My trusty sidekick is asleep beside me, he's had a rough day keeping me company.

I am here because on Thursday around 3:30pm we admitted my father for respiratory issues. He had been having continual shortness of breath that we could not figure out what to do. After seeing Dr. Liu Xing Teh it was concluded that something was very wrong, basically he couldn't find his pulse or heart his heart (incredibly faint). He finally (yes finally) convinced my dad to take a trip to the hospital and visit a heart doctor. We were trying to see if we could get Doctor Jack Chen to take a look at my dad.
At first the basic assumption was that my dad's heart had managed to accumulate lots of fluid for whatever reason, and that they were hopefully going to be able to do a simple procedure to drain it.

We packed to stay at the hospital and dropped off some tax papers with Mr. Fu (thank you for doing our taxes!). I called my brother to let him know we'd be heading to the hospital, and asked him to drive back from Athens.

Before leaving, we received a call from some family friends, Jennifer Wu and Victor Chen. She had heard about my dad going to the hospital and wanted to meet us there. We finally made it around 3:30 and sat around in the emergency area for about half an hour before the nurse had time to do the preliminary check up for my dad.

After an EKG , moving to a new room for some other tests, a cardio echo , and x-ray, my dad basically had another heart attack on the bed.

Yes, another heart attack.


As it turns out, over 10 days ago, my dad's symptoms for "severe cold" turned out to be an acute attack. Amazingly enough, not only was he walking (though with difficulty breathing) he managed to even help out at work a day and sort of mow the lawn. He had visited our family friend Dr. Liu, but at the time ... lots of circumstances combined with stubbornness, my dad did not go to the hospital. I was even with him for 4 days before we actually went...


My dad is currently laying in bed , sleeping hopefully. He has a C-PaP? machine hooked up to help his breathing... I hope he will have a slightly better night of sleep.

I too will try to rest for a bit and continue tomorrow.

Thank you to everyone who has visited, brought food, love, and well wishes. Thank you for everyone who has had us in your thoughts.

Thank you for not taking my father from us just yet.
謝謝上地還沒要爸爸回去

I love you dad.