Journal is mostly Friends Only. Comment and all that jazz.

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I wanted to be able to share this with some other, IRL friends!

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I don't know what I think about lj on iPhone...

But I like the picture posting ease.

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God bless Ohio!

Thank you, tollysquad!!

And thank you, dowen!!! :)

( Adeline will be an engineer. )

He's gone. He passed away yesterday around noon.

About two weeks ago, Dad umpired a baseball game. He called a timeout after the third batter. His face was white, he was covered in sweat and he said he was dizzy. The other umpire said, "Pete, I'm calling the paramedics." Dad insisted that he not and said he just needed to lay down for a minute. He then slept through an entire game in a dugout. The other umpire never called for help despite "reading about this stuff all the time." His wife is a medical transcriptionist, and he proofreads her work.

That heart attack lead to a clot developing in Dad's left ventricle. A sizable one apparently. Late Tuesday night, Mom went to bed. Dad was on his way to joining her, turning out lights, locking doors and about to shut down the computer, when part of that clot left his heart, broke into little pieces and entered his brain where it had the same effect as if a shotgun peppered his head from the inside. He became unconscious immediately and Mom, responding to the crash, found him face down on the tile floor, struggling to breathe.

It's been a week. He's still in ICU on a ventilator. He's had MRIs that show numerous small strokes, a "shower," and damage to the thalmus, cerebellum and both sides of his brain. The strokes are all small enough to not show up on CT scans. Some days we see improvements. He opens his eyes, he blinks, he appears to respond to commands and even questions ("Blink once if you wear glasses, blink twice if you don't."). But most of the time, he is unresponsive. The doctors have been pretty straightforward and have not fostered any false hope, although his neurologist said he saw improvements yesterday and the day before. Yet today we were told that he is not viable and that he is showing signs of his brain shutting down. Mom signed the orders to Do Not Rescusitate.

My dad is 58.