saturday night around 9pm, when i came home from shopping, my maid told me that she had problem waking my dad up. other than looking a bit pale and fatigue, he looked absolutely normal to me. but when tried to wake him up, he just didn't respond.
i called for an ambulance, the paramedics came. an hour later, we were at cgh. at that point of time, i did not think that my dad's condition could be critical. i thought it was probably caused by his parkinson. drowsiness, fatigue, maybe he fainted, maybe he's just too tired to respond. the answer we got from the A&E doctor was very shocking. she said a normal person blood count is 14, but my dad's blood count is 1.5. she had never seen a living person with such a low blood count. as such, my dad's condition is very critical. he may be gone any time. they need to give him 2 packet of blood despite the risk that his heart may not be able to take the sudden heavy workload.
3am in the morning, the war was over, my dad successfully took in the 2 packet of blood, which increased his blood count to 4. they did some basic scans on him but could not find the cause of his low blood count. they called it a day to prevent further complications from occuring. they considered my dad as critically ill and his condition was life threatening so we were told to remain contactable in case of emergency.
the weekend was quite a peaceful one. my dad just slept through the day and night. we woke him up, he only gave a sentence or two, then he fell back to sleep. the doctor planned to give him 2 or even 4 more packets of blood to bring his bloodcount back to normal, but the cause for the low bloodcount is still unknown.
Monday evening, i met my sister in the hospital after work. after 2 more packets of blood, my dad's bloodcount shot up to 11. his vital stats showed that everything was fine. but surprisingly we had problem waking him up. the doctor woke him up by beating his chest. again, the doctor said the additional blood may cause his heart to overload and stressed that he is "critically ill", he may go anytime, we need to prepare for the worst.
despite all the negative comments given by the doctors, i had a very strong feeling that my dad would be alright. he is a very strong man, like me. i inherited my strong will from him. last year when he was admitted to hospital due to water retention, they did a thorough scan on him, he was almost 100% healthy except for his parkinson and poor absorption of protein. the doctors said his heart and lungs were perfect.
Tuesday evening, when i was on the way to the hospital, my sister called me, told me that the doctors were transferring my dad to ICU because of a sudden drop in blood pressure. my confidence was drained away all of a sudden. i'd been building castle in the air by assuming my dad's good health. my dad is critically ill, he may not be able to leave the hospital alive, we may be losing him any time. i cried my way to the hospital.
doctors, nurses were crowding around him, they were trying very hard to stablise his conditions. my sister and i just sat at a distance apart, weeping, worrying, hoping, praying.
my sister told me earlier on the doctor came to woke him up asking him "uncle, lee ho bo?" (uncle, how are u?) my dad said, "wa jin ho" (i'm good). the doctor told him, "uncle, lee bo ho." (uncle, your condition is very bad).
the doctor gave him additional blood and maximum medications to sustain his blood pressure so as to do a endoscopy to detect internal bleeding spot. again, told us, if the blood pressure dropped, there's nothing they can do, be prepared. of course, based on my dad's condition, the endoscopy is again a high risk procedure for him.
few hours later, we got a good news. the bleeding spot was found in the stomach, they managed to clip it, and now the bleeding has stopped. yet, we got a bigger bad news. cancerous lumps and tumours were found in stomach, based on the conditions, he may bleed again any time.
doctors called us in for a meeting. we were given some options.
1) perform an operation to cut part of the stomach away. the advantage is this will stop the internal bleeding, may even cure the cancer if it has not spread to other organs (which is not quite possible). but there's one whole list of disadvantages. given my dad's condition, he may die in the op. after the op there's only 15% chances the stomach will heal, most probably it'll take just a few days for the stomach to tear and cost his life. after the op, he probably need to be fed thru tubes till the day he left. after the op, the cancer may still be there. after the op, he may need to go for dialysis.
2) perform angiography. using radiography technology to find the bleeding spot and stop it if another bleeding occurs.advantage is lesser disadvantage. risk is much lower, except that there's a 30% chance his kidney may totally failed. disadvantage is lesser advantage. it doesn't help the overall condition in anyway, it just prolong his life.
3) let him go. option highly recommended by the doctors.
we were told to seriously think about it and give them an answer asap.
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