[This was an email Debbie sent.]
Greetings!
Thank you to everyone, family and friends, who have been checking up on my father, David, after his heart attack on Friday. His story has an interesting beginning.
I was sitting at the teacher’s desk in the computer lab at my high school in the San Francisco, Immaculate Conception Academy, when my cell phone rang at 3:40 PM on Friday, 11/10/06. The person on the phone, who identified herself as Angie, asked of I knew a David Gee. I said that yes, he is my father. Angie then told me that dad had been just life-flighted from Boomtown Casino in Reno to the Renown Hospital there, and was unconscious. I asked if my step-mother, Dora, and cousin, Erwin, were with them. Angie replied that he came in by himself. She had found my home number from his Medic Alert bracelet. No one had answered at his home phone number. So she tried the phone number for my husband, Jim, and me. Jim forwarded Angie to my cell phone.
Flashback at this point to Boomtown about 30 minutes earlier: Dora, my-stepmother, and Erwin. Dora’s nephew, agreed to go stand in line for the Lobster Buffet at Boomtown so my dad wouldn’t tire himself. While they were standing in line, he went to play poker since it could be a long wait and standing fatigued him. At the poker table, dad collapsed, falling forward and hitting his head on the poker table. It is unclear who helped him in the next few minutes. However, someone used an Automatic External Defibrillator on him which detected that he had suffered a heart attack and which applied a high voltage jolt to defibrillate his heart. Paramedics were called. Since he wasn’t breathing, they put him on a ventilator. Then, a helicopter flew him to the hospital.
Back to my phone conversation with Angie: I said that I would find my step-mother, who was still standing in line for the buffet, and have her get in touch with Angie at the hospital. I did get Erwin and Dora who called the hospital. Since neither drive, they went immediately to the security office at the casino and got a ride to the hospital. They found dad in the hospital’s Emergency Room. In the evening, he was transferred to the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit. I drove from San Francisco, and arrived that night joining Dora and Erwin in dad’s CIC room. My brother, Doug, his wife, Mary,and his two sons, Doug, Jr. and Daniel, arrived on Saturday morning.
Dad was unconscious to semi-conscious and remained on a ventilator for two days. On Saturday morning, at about 8:30 AM, he suffered a v-tach. (Wikipedia definition:
Ventricular tachycardia is a rapid heart beat initiated within the ventricles, characterized by 3 or more consecutive premature ventricular beats.). I was in the room when it happened. Within seconds there were six nurses and two doctors in the room and dad was hooked up to a defibrillator unit. Then they waited, watching the monitors to see if the dad’s heart would re-establish a regular rhythm on its own, but ready to deliver a shock if it didn’t. They instructed dad to cough hard (hoping he could hear and respond in his semi-conscious state), which he did. After a few coughs, his heart did start a regular rhythm again. Defib averted. Dad was able to breathe on his own Sunday. After the doctor and nurses removed the ventilator on Sunday afternoon, dad was (and still is) hoarse and could only whisper.
By late Sunday night, dad (who is 83 and a veteran of both the Army and Navy) was wide awake and telling WWII and Korean War stories to the nurses – it was Veterans’ Day weekend after all. At 3:30 AM on Monday morning, when I was trying to sleep in the chair in his room, he was flipping channels on the TV and making conversation. Monday morning, he had a liquid breakfast, and by Monday afternoon was ready to dig into the rice plate Dora was eating (but, he wasn’t allowed solid food yet). The plan was to move him out of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit on Tuesday.
As of today, Tuesday, dad is in a regular, semi-private room, #410. He is eating solid food. However, he seems to choke when drinking liquids. It seems that his trachea and esophagus were damaged when the ventilator tube was put down his throat. Liquids from his esophagus end up going down his windpipe. So, all the liquid he drinks has a thickener added to it, and he shouldn’t drink from a straw. He still needs more tests. The doctors need to determine whether the grafts from his quadruple bypass surgery, which are 24+ years old and usually last 15-18 years, have dissolved. He also has congestive heart failure and a weak heart valve.
There has been a family member in the room with dad 24 hours a day since his collapse. We are staying at a hotel room in the hospital. Different family members are driving to Reno from the SF Bay and Sacramento areas to be with him. We don’t yet know when he may come home. We’re just taking things a day at a time.
Thank you to all for your prayers and concern. As time allows, I’ll send updates. Please feel free to share this email with family and friends. My cell phone has been “ringing-off-the-hook” with the calls from family, friends, SWE friends, and work friends. I am very grateful for all your thoughtful and kind words. I’ll keep in touch as I’m able.
Regards,
Debbie
