Things we know

Recently, we've gotten a couple questions more than once and I figure there might be more of you with the same questions on your minds, so here's a few clarifications, to the best of our understanding:

Brain damage is not currently a concern. The doctors and nurses have no reason to fear that Dad has any brain damage. He was able to talk a little to the paramedics and also to the attending doc when he was admitted to the ER. Since being under the sedative and the paralytic, he's given them no signs of loss of function when they've tested his reflexes.

While the burns on his back, shoulders, arm and hand are intense, our bigger worry is Dad's lungs. He had soot coating his nostrils, mouth and throat when he was admitted. He continues to cough up and they continue to suction out sooty goop from his lungs. That stuff is in there, and as a lifelong smoker, he's got a strike already against him. The staff have made sure they've said this to us more than once. Good news: His blood oxygen (that is, the level of available oxygen that his blood is able to absorb) was at 100% today. I thought that was pretty awesome, especially considering it had been down in the low 90s a couple of days ago.

Of the burns, the burn on his left shoulder seems to be the most troublesome. I haven't seen it myself, as it's always been dressed when we're in the room, but I'm told it's a deep burn. So, if anything's going to require a skin graft, it might be that area, but they're still crossing their fingers for no skin grafts. And so are we.

We won't know what may've started the fire until Dad can tell us what he remembers. We may not ever know. What we do know is that the firemen (thank you so much, gentlemen) found him asleep on the bed in one room, whereas the fire started in the adjacent room. We also know that the fire investigator said that three or four minutes longer, and we'd be dealing with a whole different situation.

Hope this helps. Love to all.

When you don't know the beginning...

...just start with what you know.

Three days ago, our father, brother, uncle, and friend was burned. In his home, in his sleep, on his face, shoulders, arms, and back. No one, except three golden retrievers, was home with him. The fire took my sister's dog Scout, who was in the room with Dad. She succumbed to the smoke inhalation. Our family home was burned. And what is not black from flame, is black from soot and smoke.

Dad is a writer. And a thinker. And a talker. Right now, he can't really do much of any of those things. But he will want to know about these moments. These days that will seem lost to him, as he's been under extreme but necessary sedation. And so much has happened already that I want to make available to him, should he ever want to know. But there is no way to retain it all in our heads.

So that is the purpose of this blog. For our family and friends to deposit thoughts they might say to him right now if they could. Or record a memory of this process (apparently, according to one of his nurses, when he comes out of this deep sedation, he is likely to say some "write-that-down-and-tease-him-about-it-later" kinds of things), or even a memory triggered by the cleaning up of the family home.

This blog is also for me, quite frankly. I have watched him, lying there, unable to speak and unable to reach beyond the sedative to truly grasp his very existence (thank God), and I feel like I should be doing something to balance that. Those who can, do. And there are few things I can do for him right now. He is in the hands of the amazing human beings at Parkland. We've held his hand, we've told him he is fine (which, frankly, is our hope, but not really our promise to make) and that we love him. We've sung to him, we've made countless phone calls to friends, we've begun to untangle the beuracracy that swells around a house disaster... But none of it quite amounts to healing his wounds or waking him from druggy slumber and easing his pain.

But this, I can do.

Just to catch up quickly, I'll use an excerpt from an email I sent to our friends two nights ago:

First I just want to thank you for all your lovely calls and messages and emails. They mean a lot and remind me that, although we may be going through something crazy or seemingly insurmountable, we are never alone.

The quick update on my dad: He's stable. He's suffered a significant amount of smoke inhalation and so he's on an evil machine that racks his lungs to, in effect, shake out the particulants. Due to this strange trauma he must undergo in order to get better, he's completely sedated. His burns may require skin graft surgeries, but they are waiting to see what healing begins to take place on its own. Apparently, in burn injuries of this nature, the first few days are spent with the body simply unswelling and settling before they can determine the true extent of the burns.

So, our first risk is that his lungs will not clear out enough crap to be okay again, and the second risk is that the burns on his arms and left hand are bad enough that he can't work again. The good news: He is in one of the top burn ICUs in the country. The bad news: Well.

At this point, we just focus on two very important, undeniably heartening things: He is alive. And he is 80% UNburned.

Meanwhile, the other patient -- his house -- is not doing nearly as well as Dad is doing. I don't know if you've ever experienced the aftermath of a house fire, but up to this point, it's been a mixture of confusion, mess, and heartbreak. It's a helluva thing to try to chase simple notions like insurance policies and utility accounts and mortgage paperwork when everything is burned , sooty, or wet ; and the only one who knows which end is up is unconscious and fighting for his life. And then, suddenly, after we've all made a string of what seemed like fruitless phone calls and looked through endless black and ruined objects, you realize you've actually made progress. And the mess is beginning to seem less daunting and hopeless.

I am at the end of the longest two days I've ever experienced. But I can tell you this: Dad has an amazing family, of which I am proud to be part, and I have amazing friends, with whom I am truly blessed. Thank you so much dear hearts. I don't know quite when we'll return to Denver. I do know I'm needed here through the end of the week for sure. I will try to be in touch again in a few days.