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On Good Friday I received word that my father, James Bingle, had passed away while being treated for pneumonia in Prescott, AZ.

Dad had many challenges over the last several years. Several small and a couple of larger strokes, valve replacement surgery and complications afterwards, sleep apnea, a bad reaction to a blood transfusion, diabetes, a pacemaker, multiple falls. Many of the things he had once spent hours doing were no longer possible or enjoyable.

On April 3rd his fight came to an end and he entered into the presence of his Lord and Savior.

I love you, Dad!

Happy Anniversary!

We lost our “kitten”, Velvet, on Wednesday, September 19th. She passed in her sleep after a long and spoiled life.

We will miss her company, her purring, and the way she always knew when we were blue or not feeling well.

He’s home!

That’s right, we brought Dad home from the rehab hospital today! And boy, was he ready to leave. When we arrived at the rehab hospital today, he had his cpap machine packed up, his blanket folded, his papers stacked, and was waiting in a wheelchair at the door to his room peaking down the hall every few seconds.

We thought that the cat, Velvet, would be happy to see him, but she was very “cat like” and just acted aloof. We did catch her later sleeping with her head somewhat in one of his shoes, though. So I guess she was happy to have him home after all.

He’s currently on oxygen and a bunch of prescriptions, but hopefully neither situation is long term, but we’ll have to see.

— Rich

After spending most of last week back in Wuesthoff Hospital, Dad was released back to rehab on Friday. Chris arranged midweek to have Dad reviewed by Sea Pines Rehab Hospital down in Palm Bay (about 30 minutes away) and they agreed to place him there on Friday instead of going back to the Wuesthoff Rehab Center (Spyglass).

Mom and I visited him on Saturday. He was a bit tired after having physical therapy in the morning, so after eating his lunch he took a nap. Later in the day, Dad and I played a game of Blokus, which I only won by 4 squares. We then arranged to have one of his chess buddies come in on Sunday afternoon to play chess and left shortly after he had dinner.

The hope is that this rehab center will provide more attentive care and will work him harder so that he can eventually come home sooner.

Chris has arranged to extend her stay until the end of this week to help Mom with some more stuff at the house and transport her down to Sea Pines.

— Rich

Well, I fully intended to send out a positive update last night, but never got around to it…

Dad was transferred on Friday from the CSU at the hospital to a rehab center a couple of miles from their house (same one he was at two years ago). He seemed pretty happy to be out of the CSU when we went to see him on Saturday. Don and I even got to take him outside in the courtyard for about 20 minutes so that he could enjoy the fresh air. He had three therapists assigned to him – speech/swallowing, occupational, and physical. All that therapy seemed to wear him out, but he seemed in good spirits and was looking forward to having his chess buddies start visiting him at the rehab center.

Then, this morning I got a call from Mom that Dad had a bad nose-bleed this morning that they couldn’t stop and that they had transferred him by ambulance back to the ER at the hospital. I just got off the phone with Mom, and it sounds like they are re-admitting him to Wuesthoff hospital. Unfortunately, I don’t have any details yet (she was going to call me back in a while since she wasn’t supposed to be using her phone where she was).

— Rich

Well, according to Mom and Don, they may be transferring Dad from CSU to the rehab center as early as tomorrow!

Apparently he has been doing better with his breathing and swallowing (although there is still progress to be made). Don reports that he is much more alert today than he was early in the week. I’m sure he’d love to get out of the CSU and be able to have visitors and such. However, I’m not sure he realizes just how hard they are going to make him work in rehab…

— Rich

Saw Dad 4 times yesterday and he was awake and alert each time. He wants to get out of there, but can’t yet…

They removed the breathing tube a few days ago, but still have the feeding tube in through his nose. In fact, he’s apparently started having difficulty swallowing “correctly” (maybe because they’ve had to intubate several times over the last 2 weeks?), so there was some talk of putting a “PEG tube” in case he needs nutrition for an extended period of time while working on re-learning to swallow so that he doesn’t aspirate food and liquids into his lungs. But, before that could happen, he developed Deep Vein Thrombosis (blood clots) in his legs, so they are currently dealing with that. A speech therapist will hopefully start working with him today on the swallowing issue, and hopefully the treatments they’ve been giving him for the DVT issue will allow them to get him back up on his feet without fear of the clots causing an “issue”.

I picked up Don at the airport on Saturday evening and dropped Chris off at the airport this morning. Don will be here a week and Chris will be back early next week for another week long visit. Hopefully by the time she gets back, Dad will be in the rehab center instead of the hospital, but he’s got to get well enough to get out of the CSU first.

— Rich

Well, I just got off the phone with Chris and then the nurse at the CSU. They had to put Dad back on the ventilator again today (which means the breathing tube and feeding tube went back in). Apparently he was pretty lethargic yesterday and they had a hard time getting him to wake-up/stay awake this morning. A blood test showed that he was retaining too much CO2 in his blood because his breathing is too shallow. They’ll recheck things tomorrow and will determine then when they’ll wean him off of the ventilator (again).

I know there haven’t been any updates in a week – I went home on Monday and have been at work all week (although I have been calling in to the CSU once a day) to check his status.

Anyway, I visited Dad this morning and he is looking much better than the last time I saw him. Over the past week they ended up putting the breathing tube back in for a couple of days because his oxygenation levels were apparently too low. I think they ended up taking it back out on Wednesday or so. This morning he was sitting in a recliner watching TV. He has also apparently been walked down the hall in CSU a couple of times, so that is a positive sign as well.

Don will be coming down for a week about the time that Chris heads home for a week or so, after which she plans on coming back out for a while.

It will be nice once Dad is transferred out of the CSU to a regular room so that his chess buddies can come in (one at a time!) to play some chess with him. I think he’d enjoy that. Also, once he is in a regular room, Karen can bring the girls over for a visit as well.

— Rich