Update

Hey guys.

First off, I just want to say thank you for all your kind words and thoughts. It really means a lot to me.

Things are....interesting. Right now it's a lot of hurry up and wait.

He's still alive, which is good. We aren't sure how long his brain went without oxygen though. The doctors said 0-5 minutes without oxygen, you have a pretty good chance of coming back, with little or no brain damage. 5-10 minutes is the gray area. He might come back, but probably with some amount of damage. Then 10-15 minutes the chances of him coming back at all are rather small. We're guessing we're somewhere in the gray area.

My grandparents were watching tv, my grandma in a chair up close, and my grandpa in a chair behind her a little. All of a sudden she heard a noise from him. She said it sounded like all the air rushing out of him. She turned around to look, and he was sitting there with his head tilted back, mouth open, all gray and not breathing. So she called 911 right away, but can't remember how long it took them to get there. She thinks around 5-7 minutes. Then they had to work for a while to get his heart beating again. All of that adds up, and the line between fine, maybe ok, and bad is really thin.

Last night they started to cool down his body to 32 degrees Celsius (around 89 degrees Fahrenheit)to help protect his brain against further damage. They got him cooled down around 6 AM this morning. They'll keep him there for 24 hours and then start to warm him back up again. That'll happen around 6 AM Friday. It'll take about 12 hours to warm him back to normal. Then they'll take him off the sedatives and other drugs they put him on. So around 8 PM tomorrow night will be the first possible time for him to wake up. The doctors aren't really expecting him to wake up that soon though. They gave him about a 50% chance of waking up at all. They usually wait 2, maybe 3 days to see if he'll wake up. If he doesn't by then, he most likely won't ever. So then the hard choices come into play. Or he could wake up, but not be the same person anymore. My mom says that'll be the hardest. If he's alive, but no longer her father.

We're going to go back to the hospital tomorrow around 8 PM and see what happens. If nothing, my parents are going back at 8 AM Saturday morning. I'll probably go there around noon before I have to go to work. I don't want to go to work, but I talked with Aaron about it (who I'll be working with) and he said if I need to come in late, not at all, or leave in the middle that's fine. So at least I'll be able to get there if something happens.

In a perfect world, he'll wake up tomorrow night and all will be fine. But in reality, my mom and grandma aren't very optimistic. I think some of that is to prepare for the worst, and be pleasantly surprised, but I also think they think it just won't happen. I'm not really sure what I think.

I'm still kinda numb to it all. I'm sure once I see him tomorrow it'll sink in more.

I had an interesting dream last night. My grandpa, and my great grandpa always liked turquoise. In my dream, it was my grandpa's funeral. All of us were wearing turquoise suits, and having a great time celebrating his life. It was very pleasant. Not sad at all. I'm not really sure what to make of it. But I thought it was nice. It didn't make me sad. I actually woke up with a small smile on my face. I think that's the mindset I need to keep. Hold on to all the good things, no matter what happens.

I guess that's about it. I'll post when I know more.

143

_Kevin