Oh my heavens! Where did the time go?! I cannot believe that I've been away for so long. I do apologize for anyone who actually followed this little blog of mine :-p
Well now where to begin?! I'll just write out what I can remember I guess....haha
My last post was for the Walk For Autism. Well little did we know that more came from that walk then we expected.
My dad had been having severe headaches the week of the walk. The morning of the walk, he had a massive migrane but really didn't want to miss out on the event since it was the first one we've participated in. He battled through it and we finished the whole event. The next week at work, after continuous headaches, my dad collapsed at work. The paramedics were called, and he once again passed out. The medics thought he had a stroke, which is a really scary word for family to hear. After much time and tests spent at the University of Utah hospital, the doctors discovered my dad had a severe tear in his carotid artery. 
Usually, a tear like that DOES result in a blood clot which leads to stroke. Thankfully for my dad, the tear was on the INNER lining of the artery, which caused the artery itself to buldge, but thankfully not bleed out. What the buldging did result in was my dad's left eye to go funky. The puldge put pressure on his nerve which resulted in my dad's eye going lazy. My mom looked at him one day (about 3-4 days before this incident) and realized his left eye was not tracking. Again, we thought stroke. Anyways, so they discovered the tear and immediately started medication. They put him on exstensive blood thinners and pain meds. He was in the hospital I think 2 days before they sent him home. Now usually with a tear like that, all you can really do is bring the swelling down with blood thinners, and let it heal over time. Here is where we ran into another snag.....
My dad was home almost a week before my brother Jeff noticed that he did not look well. He wasn't experiencing pain, just felt weird. Finally my brother couldn't take it anymore and called our best family friend and E.R. nurse Jana to come check on him. My dad was grey and very disoriented. Jana knew something was wrong and told my brother to call 911. The ambulence came and again trasnported him to the U of U hospital. There we found almost a scarier diognosis then the first. Since my dad had been having constant headaches the month previous, he was constantly taking asprin and other pain pills. Now for those of you who DON'T know...if you take a massive number of pain pills on a consistant basis, your stomach lining can't handle that well. My dad had developed a serious stomach ulcer. Now........lets see.......an OPEN stomach wound PLUS massive amount of blood thinners EQUALS........Yea. My dad nearly bled out internally! They think that one more day waiting, and he could have suffered severe damage or even death. They immediately took him off the thinners and did an laperscopy to look at the ulcer. With almost a week in the hospital, the ulcer healed up and he was once again, on the road to recovery.
It's been a long and tedious recovery with much adversity along the way. It's sad to see how people can be so unkind and uncaring in situations like these. Lets just say my dad's old boss......yea......a D-Bag! Anyhoo! My dad is doing well now. He occassionally had headaches which were expected, and he'll have to be on medication the rest of his life to protect himself. We are definitely thankful for all the prayers that were sent our way. It was a scary time for our family and it really brought us closer. The best medicine for my dad was of course, Bentley. He really enjoyed the time they spent together in the hospital and helping to babysit while he was home recouping. =) Love you Dad!!
My parents with my brother Josh
Me with Josh
Haha He didn't really know what was going on
