My Life's Journey - Life's "CARD" Game - Part 5 - The Hospital And My Father's Condition
As I have said in the previous part of my story nobody could off prepared me for what I am about to see when I entered the intensive care room to visit my father. My brother told me about it but I still could not picture it all in my head. It took us about 25 minutes to arrive from my hometown Drnis to the hospital in Šibenik where my father was. The trip went by fast as I talked to brother the entire way. But, once we got there we were both quiet and nervous about the condition of our father. Not even my brother knew how he was because this was his first visit after the ambulance took my father to the hospital...
If you missed the first 4 parts of the story you catch up by clicking below:
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
The Hospital
We arrived there about 10 minutes before the visiting hours and had to wait a bit just like other people also waiting to visit their loved ones. Those ten minutes felt like 10 hours I kid you not. My brother played some video games on his phone to distract himself, while I was just staring at the floor of the stairs I was sitting on. Finally, we saw a nurse coming, buzzing the door open and letting is in. My heart was really racing as we were trying to find a room where our father was. There are five rooms with 3 beds in each room. And, the more severe patients are placed in the room 4-5. So I started walking hoping honestly I would see my father in one of the first rooms. It would mean he is doing better....
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But, unfortunately, he was not in any of the first 3 rooms. I remember honestly every step being heavier as I passed each of those 3 rooms. My heart was literally beating like I am playing one of my basketball games. I finally arrived at room number 4 which is basically for the patients who are stable, but still in critical condition. That is when I saw my father laying down on the last bed in the room close the window. I walked by the first two beds and arrived in front of my father's bed. And, like I said before, no one could off prepared me for what I was seeing...
Now, I will be very detailed guys so you can imagine what I was seeing exactly through my eyes. The huge hematoma he had on his eye from the fall was way bigger then the day I left for Zagreb. But, the worst than his eyes, was his right side of the body. He had strained shoulder and bruised ribs from the fall. But, the hematoma created by fall now seemed to have expanded as well. His whole right side of the body, all the way to the thighs was dark red, blue color. I mean all the way from the shoulder to the thighs. And, not just in one spot, all the way from the ribs down. It looked terrible. And, I thought, this was the worse of it. But, the worst I am about to see was when he woke up..
The good news when he woke up was that he recognized my brother and me. And even more important he is ALIVE guys. I've said it in many of my posts and I will say it again now. If you are still breathing there is a chance to do anything, to change anything, and in my father's case get better again. I kissed him on the forehead and started talking to him a bit only realize his left side of the face and bottom lip is partially paralyzed and he could not control it. Not an easy thing to see guys. Just two days ago besides the bruises, he was OK. But this is life, my amazing friends, it can deal us the "CARDS" we never expected to get. It is up to us to make the best of them. I did not show to him how I felt seeing him like this. But, rather, I put a smile on my face. But, on the inside, it was a different story... .
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"Life is all about what you do with "cards" you have been dealt in life?"
And, the more we talked to him, the more we realized, things are even worse. Our father would fall sleep in 1 sec, sleep for 20 sec without him remembering sleeping at all. Guys I mean he would literally start snoring in 5 sec. He would forget what we talked about 5 min before. I mean it was just a big mess. And, it was even harder to watch it all. For me, the worse part of it all was his eyes. I don't know how to explain this to you, but when I looked at him it seemed like the part of him is "missing". Like part of my father is literally gone. I do not know how to describe it better than this. Every time the nurses would move him, his eyes, would role backward without him being able to control it at all. No words can describe what my brother and I were seeing. It was just heartbreaking...
Breathing And Waiting
But, I did not care how bad it was because at the gas station the day before I made myself a promise I would do anything I can to get my father well again. No matter how bad it looked at the moment. He was BREATHING, and it was the only IMPORTANT thing of all. I only kept those thoughts in my head. I blocked off everything else. The emotions and everything else. I felt the emotions inside me, but I just did not let them out at all..
The visiting hours were 1 hour long only, but my father slept through half of it. We had to leave him and come back for the afternoon visiting hours. So we kissed him goodbye and told him we will be back in the afternoon. We still did not know anything about what has caused this to happen to him. The consultations with the doctor who treated him were in 1 hour and the only thing we can do is wait. And, one of the worst things, in this case, is WAITING..
Because after being in shock from seeing my father like this, my mind started to play all these scenarios in my head. Not to mention rewinding pictures of how my father looked. The way his eyes looked when I looked at them were just stuck in my head. But, I tried to stay calm as possible so I can focus on more important things at the moment. I did not let the sadness and heartache out... Another "long" hour after the doctor finally arrived so we could talk to him and get some information about our father's condition..
More Questions Than Answers
So my brother and I walked into the room. And, started talking to a doctor. Basically, she told us they did CT on his head and found a big mass on the right lobe of his brain. But, because my father has a mechanical heart valve, they could not do magnetic resonance to see what is the mass on his brain. And, if they tried to do MRI, it would probably stop his heart. The mass was pressuring the brain and creating all those problems for him. But, they had no idea what the "mass" is? It could off been a tumor, big hematoma, brain aneurysm, or something else. She just told us to be patient as they run more tests. We came out of that room with more questions instead of getting answers. To be honest, the way she spoke to us felt like she had no clue how to deal with this problem. She seemed unconvincing and unsure about it all. Which got us both worried even more...
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We had no choice but to wait for them to do more tests and hopefully they can tell us more in the next few days. Now we had to wait 4 hours or so for afternoon visiting hours. So we went out of the hospital to take a breather and grab something to eat. Because none of us ate anything and it was already 2 pm. We did not talk too much but we both knew what we were thinking about. We were both thinking about what the doctor said, and how unconvincing she sounded to us both. And, as you will see later, our "feelings" were more than correct...
After sitting for a while I could not just sit and wait anymore. I had to do something, I mean right away. So I picked up the phone and called my meditation teacher and told him about what was happening and about what the doctor in the hospital told us. He is a doctor as well but more on the alternative side of medicine. It is a long story but I trust this guy more than any other "modern" doctor. He has helped me tremendously throughout my life..
Doing "Something"
To make a very long story short I have been practicing special kind of mediation for a year and a half now. I have come to a certain level where I can focus better and I am in better control of my thoughts plus many other differences which are not important to explain now. Meditation was the reason I was able to control the emotions and keep them in check so I can think and focus. I have come to a level where I need to start learning how to heal people with the "energy." I still needed to go through a course to learn this technique but I asked my teacher if he can speed me through what I need to do so maybe I can help my father right now. I know it might sound strange for some of you guys, but like I said I was going to try everything to get my father well again.
I can't tell you too much about it, but what I needed to do takes a lot of focus as you need to for a short period of time "eliminate" all thoughts from your head so you can let the energy pass through your body and onto the person you are trying to help or heal. If you ever tried to meditate you know how hard it is to accomplish such a task. It took me a long time to get better at it. I did not understand yet how it all works, but this was the main principle behind this healing technique.
Anyways, for the next longest 2 hours of my life, my brother and I spent talking and waiting for the afternoon visiting hours to see our father again. I told my brother about it, and how when we go visit my father again I need to have full silence so I can do this because it takes full focus and concentration. My brother was on board. We had nothing to lose but to try it.
So on our second visit every ten minutes or so I would perform this technique on my father for as long as I could focus to keep other thoughts out my head. When I would focus like this for 3-4 minutes I would be literally drenched in sweat after. I had no idea if I am doing it the right way or if it was working. In between, we tried to keep a positive atmosphere as possible. Even in this condition, my father found a time to crack a couple of jokes. lol Even though he would forget about it 10 min later. That 1 hour went by fast and soon we had to kiss our father goodbye and drive back home. It was a hard, emotional, and stressful day, for both my brother and me...
To be continued...
I know you will have a hard time believing this, but we are just at the beginning guys. This is just a little part of a very long summer for my family and me, and every day for the next 4 months was a battle with twists and turns we could off never expected. This was just the start of "war" for my father's life. I will leave you with this message:
Thank you all for reading, have a blessed day, much love,
dbjegovic 💕 💞 💓
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Wow, @awakentolife. This was really stressful, I cannot imagine seeing your father this way. The falling asleep to the forgetting...that is heartbreaking. Add to the fact you didn't feel good about his treatment. I realized by the end of your post I hadn't even taken a breath...tough ordeal for you and your family. Blessings to you :) Those positive attitudes can move mountains!!!
It sure was not easy to see, my amazing friend. But these were the "cards" in front of us and we can only do the best we can with them. And, you are absolutely right about positive attitude being able to move mountains as in my father's case it did. As the positive and not giving up attitude is what got us through this tough time... We had to move "mountains."
Have a blessed day, my friend. :)
The Stress you and your brother went through at that time We can only imagine and even though you are telling the story with such clarity and detail and we can imagine what it was like for you all, but we never can feel what you felt
So powerful and touching to read
I tried my best to describe what I was seeing and feeling... and as you read in the next posts this was just beginning of stress and worry on my father's way to recovery.
Thank you for reading brother, have an amazing day :)
I kind of feel like I am prying in that I wait with bated breath for each update in this
This is a lot to go through, you all have been through so much. I can’t even imagine. Thank goodness he is still alive, that made me happy when you said that. Good for you for controlling your emotions and having a smile for your father even though it was so difficult. Your family being there by his side made a huge difference. Even though he might have forgot certain things quickly, the image of his two sons standing over him will keep him strong :)
I think in the moments of sadness you should keep the greatest hope in your heart. Because it is when it matters the most. When you are tested like my family was. And, the only thing on my mind was, no matter how bad it looked at the moment, is he will get better and well again. And, as you will see in the next parts it will play a big role in my father's recovery. :)
Have an amazing day, my amazing friend, and thank you for kind words. :)
I totally agree with you! It’s important that we do so! Where would we be without hope? It’s inspiring how you handled this whole situation. I’ll be awaiting the next chapter.
You too have a wonderful amazing day!! 😊
Hm... your father's condition is interesting @awakentolife . I am trying to look at it at the medical point of view but of course I am no doctor.
I do hope that the mass in your dad's head was an internal hemorrhage instead of a tumour (because that complicates things further); and I can see that the mass could have blocked the senses of remembering and motor skills of the muscle.
I speak about this because my highschool best friend's sister in law had an accident a few years back. She was hit by a car from her motorcycle.
Those symptoms looked similar and in the end she had all the blood drained through the surgery, and took a while to recover and she did.
This also happened to my dad's cousin who was knocked down by a car while she was cycling home. Being 70+ years old having massive hemorrhage is truly no joke.
Till now she is still recovering from paralysis and my dad visits her whenever they have the time with the rest of the cousins, but she is slowly regaining motor skills for her arms.
The doctors opened her skull to drain the blood and still with a cover until the swell is all ok.
As for the meditation. I am glad it helped you to stay focused at that time. But I have learned in crisis like this the more you try to do more the worse it will get within you. I believe you have gone through that phase and I am just glad you are better now and able to gather your thoughts to share with us your journey.
BIG HUGS!
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Thank for sharing your experiences with this. But, my father's case is more complicated because of many things. I will write about them in the next part but you are not far from the truth at all. But, honestly, my father's case showed me how little amount of qualified doctors are out there? My fathers were complicated, but the arrogance of some doctors is just stupid? If you do not know what is the problem then say so... I say this because I will describe in my post about what happened later...
It could off all been prevented way before it got a lot worse... And, you are right about trying to do too much as I did too MUCH and it has left a toll for me.. A BIG one.
Thank you for such an amazing comment, my amazing friend, sending you a big HUG as well. Have a blessed day. :)
This sounded like 2006 incident when my mom was hit with Steven John Syndrome (medication overdose that caused internal organs burnt by the poison)
My dad too my mom to be admitted in 3 different hospital and by God's grace that the last privatised hospital realised that something was not right and did the right diagnostic and saved her.
Yes many professionals out there do not keep improving their education of new things and because of such ignorance, crucial things like medical line is life and death situations and this truly could lead to the rise of death tolls that could have been prevented.
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*What an extraordinary story. I am so sorry this has happened and wish you and your family all the best. I hope the positive atmosphere and love you have helps him recover and I'm so glad you have meditation as a tool to help!
Thank you @naturalmedicine and @riverflows for your awesome comment. This story has a lot more pages to write as this was just the beginning of the road to recovery. Meditation sure came in handy and has helped me stay focused on the things I needed to do at the time. :)
Thank you, for your good wishes, and I will sure check out and use the #naturalmedicine tag when appropriate. Have a blessed day. :)
Although this is was an extremely difficult time for you and your family Durko, the one thing I feel the most from your story is the love and dedication. The love that you and your brother have for your father is so powerful that I believe it had a lot to do with his healing. And yes, the meditation was the way to channel that. I truly admire all the strength and courage that you both have. God bless you and your family Durko. I look forward to read more 💖😊💖
It sure was one of the most challenging times in our lives. For both my brother and me. But, just like you said the love we had for our father helped us push boundaries and played a great role in his recovery as well. Mediation, as I am finding out now, has a lot more to offer than just calmness, health, but it has the power to do some "miraculous" stuff. At least, that is what I felt. I will talk more about it as I write the next part of the story. :)
Thank you, my amazing friend for your kind words. I truly appreciate it. God bless you and your family as well. 💖
You are very welcome Durko and I am very curious how everything was unfolding. Thank you to my Friend 💖
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