Marc's Musings

For those of you that don't know, my dad had a pretty severe stroke last Wednesday. My parents, who live in Corpus Christi, were in Abilene, along with my sister and her family, when it happened. My dad was flown to Lubbock and is in the SICU at Covenant Hospital at this time. I flew to Lubbock on Wednesday evening and made the difficult decision to return to Houston on Sunday evening. I am going back to Lubbock on Friday afternoon.

He had a hemorrhagic stroke, which is the rarer, and worse, of the two types of strokes. He is paralyzed on the right side of his body. He seems to have pretty good use of the left side of his body and has been able to respond to commands (i.e. wiggle your toes, show me two fingers, etc.). He is on a respirator to help control the oxygen levels in his blood. We were hoping that it would come out by today, but Sunday night was a rough one and he appears to have pulled on it some, requiring that it be reinserted. The nurses had trouble getting it back in.... To make a long story short, his has been given a lot of morphine, which slows down the recovery process. He is responsive and knows what is going on and has been able to open his eyes and answer yes/no questions, when he's not tanked up on the morphine. When I was leaving on Sunday afternoon, he waved bye to me. As of now, he has some fluid in his lungs, which may be Pneumonia. This is not a good thing, but it not all that uncommon. At the very least, it will be a very long recovery process and it is too early to tell what kind of recovery it will be.

If that isn't enough, my granddad went to the hospital yesterday with pneumonia. The doctors estimate that he will only be there for three days, but my parents are in Lubbock and can't be there with him. My dad's sister, Jan, and her husband, Bob, have gone to Corpus today.

I wanted to post an update as I know many of you want to know what's going on. Please keep praying for my dad, mom, sister, granddad and the rest of our extended family and friends. Please also pray for the doctors and nurses that have been treating him. Please pray that God’s will is done in this situation and that we will be able to live with His will.

Here's dad in Monument Valley:


Here he is holding up a rock:


Here he is taking in the scenery on Mt. Taylor:


Here he is playing Monopoly with Kaden:


Here he is with Pierson and Kaden:


I couldn't leave out Ashton:


Here's granddad with his kids:


Here's granddad with his grandkids:


Here's granddad with his great-grandkids:


Here are the men of the family: