smith life now

My dad abbreviated version: had a fribulation, a flutter, in his heart, causing the heart not to pump blood to body correctly (fairly common). Went in for surgery to deaden the veins causing this. The procedure worked because heart is pumping normally now, but during procedure his oxygen levels dropped and he was put on a ventilator at 100%. They were quite worried about this and did not wake him up afterward because it's very uncomfortable to have all the tubes and everything down your throat. He was taken off the oxygen a little, down to 70% (good), then 60% and then 40% this morning, but after a blood test he was not getting enough air and had to go back up to 100%. Just recently they put him at 60%, but he probably wont change for the rest of the day, meaning he won't be woken up yet. He is a fighter and wants to be awake so quite a few times as the sedation stuff wears off before needing to be changed, he has woken and started raising his hands to his mouth, trying to get the tubes out. I won't go into too much detail, but we hold his hands, and squeeze and talk to him, trying to get him to calm down till the doctor could get him more medicine. It's very hard to see him like this, but the doctor and nurses say he will be okay; we just have to be patient. The good signs were that when he was slightly awake, he would turn his head when people were speaking, to the left or right, following it. And at one point I asked him something and he nodded yes.

During the surgery they also found a large hole in his heart between the two upper chambers that he was born with and has gone undetected until now. They will have to close that soon (in the next weeks/month) but won't address it until he recovers from this. It's very scary and humbling, but is bringing us together. Of course, I go through all these thoughts in my mind I won't discuss, but my heart starts racing, and I try to calm down. My mom has been so tender and has been by his side all but a few hours when the hospital made her leave. Luckily Collin and I live only 10 minutes from there and she was able to come get a little sleep.

If you can, please pray that everything will be okay. We feel really loved and supported. I know that God loves us and is aware of my dad and our family right now; I feel it strongly in my heart, no matter what happens. But I think everything will be fine!