Update #1

Papa had to have numerous blood transfusions, approximately 10 units of blood. He went back and forth and up and down with his blood levels. He had an Endoscopy and they found that he had severe Esophogitis but that wasn't the cause of the bleeding. On Nov. 1st, the Gastroenterologist said that he would need to do an Exploratory Laparotomy and depending on what he found, he may have to do a bowel resection to remove part of the colon and that Papa may end up with an Ostemy bag. As it turned out, the bleeding stopped temporarily and they were able to put off the surgery. Nov. 3rd - The surgeon performed the Laparotomy, it took about 4 hours and he had to remove about 1/3 of the colon. At the end of the surgery he didn't end up needing to have the ostemy bag (whew). He needed another 4 units of blood, he was intubated so they kept him heavily sedated until they were closer to removing the tube since patients get very combative and try to pull the tube out. He was on continuous dialysis until the surgery. Nov. 5th - He was down to 3 hours a day for dialysis, still heavily sedated, needed more blood in the morning. Potassium and Glucose levels were good, they are going to try to wean him off of the sedation so that they can take the breathing tube out. My brother and my cousin Franco have been here a few days, I flew into Las Vegas this afternoon. They are starting to reduce the amount of sedation so Papa feels really miserable with the breathing tube in. He had to have his hands restrained so that he wouldn't pull on it. At 10:30 pm his hemoglobin was low so they gave him some iron through his IV, he was pretty agitated so they also gave him morphine and ativan to keep the incision pain under control and calm him down.