AAA Repair-Father-Addenbrookes-Cambridge

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Hours seemed like days, days like weeks, this is day (February 26) number 5 after my father collapsed at home.

It was a Wednesday afternoon, I'd been thinking about my Dad that day, my mother finished work early bringing home fish-and-chips for tea. What my mother found was my father laying in a bath full of warm water to ease the pain in his back.

My father's health isn't too bad really for a 63 year old, the occasional long term cough which we'd though might be lung cancer, he'd already given up a 40 year smoking habit. He suffered from hypertension otherwise more commonly known as high blood pressure. Fitness wise he walked about a mile a day upto to the church and back with the daily post. All of this until the AAA.

Mother telephoned the local village surgery immiediately and the Doctor was called in early, Dad and Mum drove down there. At the surgery panic swept the place in a way that panic does when there's a proper panic on, an ambulance was called straight away. It was the paramedic who put 2+2 together loosely diagnosing an AAA as a possibility. Off to the local hospital they went, mother in tow making he own way. As far as we know the paramedics were lowering his blood pressure in anticipation of an AAA while continually reporting to the hospital via radio.

At the hospital you really couldn't have seen anything like it; Doctors, Consultants, everyone in total action. My mother says that these television medical dramas don't even come close in capturing the realism of how dedicated and brilliant these people are. This is an NHS hospital too remember, a free public organisation which soon comes under fire for perceived mistakes but is seldom praised so publically.

They made the decision there and then with the assistance of an ultrasound scan that an AAA was indeed what they were dealing with, the decision immiediately that Dad was to go to Addenbrookes in Cambridge some 30 miles away for an immiediate and emergency operation. The paramedics, those brilliant paramedics who almost definitely saved my Dad's life stayed on after their shift to take Dad to Addenbrookes, they were about to go home after a day's work. How can anyone fault these people, how, just don't answer that.

Mum wasn't to go in the ambulance with him as they explained they were continuing to plug tubes into Dad and alsorts, literally prepping him for surgery before he was even in the hospital. It was about this time that Mum phoned me, at 5:15pm. I know it was this time precisely as I still have the answerphone message in the saved folder, at this time I still didn't know what was going on, I'd spoken to Mum at about 4pm when I rung home out of the blue but just assumed it was another one of the family calamities that go on in the these rural local villages, even the newspaper being delivered in the morning is an event of huge importance.

Mum called me from Addenbrookes at about 5.30 on my mobile, I and my parther were out picking up a Chinese takeaway, our treat of the week. I took the call after I'd ordered and was waiting the 10-minutes, collecting the takeaway was a sombre moment as I then knew something that I didn't before whilst fighting back the tears. Mum had explained that dad had an aneurysm and that he was likely going to die tonight and that he was having an operation immiediately. This certainly took the word brisk into a complete new meaning. It's a real surreal feeling, yes that's the word, surreal. That Wednesday evening became so surreal and is almost merged into one big blurred feeling as I sit here writing about the events trying to capture the last few days.

We arrived home waiting for the next call of what to do next, a 70 mile journey to Cambridge was a certainty. My partner drove, I was too numb or something like that. It seemed like there was no hurry even though we were doing 90mph all the way. All I could think about was that my Dad was going to die, what would we do, how could I be thinking like that. It's such a sombre numbed feeling, almost as if you're gliding from one road turning to the next. Once we'd arrived in Cambridge we swapped over at the petrol station where I went in to pick up lots of car park change. The petrol attendant, a woman in her 40's with dark hair knew what I was doing and just handed over some £30 in coinage change just for the asking. You have to understand that cashiers don't give away their change for love nor money, "take care," she said in such a supportive way, as if she saw numbed walking people like me once a night.

At Addenbrookes in the A&E (Accident and Emergency) department we made ourselves known. Seriousness, total seriousness swept across the lady's face, and across the face of the lady sitting next to her. Now that's one strange feeling I can tell you, knowing exactly what they're thinking. They knew, or suspected that my Dad was going to die. The lady got up from her chair and went out of a security door coming around the side asking me to follow her. We were taken to a family-room a few corridors down. Again, you have to understand that in NHS hospitals this kind of hospitality isn't openly extended in the form of a key-card room containing big sofas, a free coffee machine, a phone and alike. God it really sets you up that does whatever you're feeling at the time.

In the room was my mother who was teary eyed and her workmate/adopted son David. The duty nurse dropped by as I arrived and explained the situation. It makes you feel so humble and helpless, but so so humble and so grateful to them, and yes of course we are, that would never be disputed in a million years. Such brilliant dedicated wonderful people. I was too proud to cry and was fighting back the tears, both ones of fear and total gratefulness. They said that we wouldn't know anything for a few hours yet and to expect the worst.

We sat there and sat there, every time a body walked past the frosted glass in the door we paused, if someone stopped to chat outside, that was it, they were coming for us. 7pm. 8pm. 9pm. 10pm. The nurse dropped by saying that we may have to be moved to another room closer to the operating theatre as another family may be coming in soon. 11pm. David had left by now, he'd done all he could and was so kind. My partner and my mum nipped out to the toilet and I was left in the room alone. I cried and cried and cried the tears streaming down my face talking to my Daddy, telling him to focus and that I loved him so much.

12am. There's no way I can convey this to you, there just isn't. 1am. The duty nurse arrived saying that Dad had come through, that there had been no complications, and that we could wait in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) waiting room. What! What are you telling us! Dad's alive!? It's done!? Of course we didn't fire those questions at him but in the big blur looking back it feels like I did. We just went in whatever direction he wanted us to go in, we'd have walked up 50 floors of stairs and jumped off the roof without question if they'd told us to.

Sitting in the ICU waiting room we just sat. At about 1.20am a young nurse came into the room, we looked up, this was us, we could see Daddy. Going through the multiple of security doors there was Dad, our Daddy in the corner, alive, asleep in bed. Oh God, I'm crying now. Our Daddy, our so precious Daddy. These people, aren't they so brilliant. Oh my God, our Daddy. Tubes and alsorts were running from him everywhere, but he was alive. The screens showed a stable heart beat, 70, and a healthy blood pressure, 120/90 or thereabouts. We spoke with the nurse, he said they were pleased with how the operation went and that there were no complications so were very optimistic. And I can't write anymore for the moment.

This is the 2nd write-up of the tide of things, time seems to have gone so fast when in the beginning it went so slow.

"By all accounts you shouldn't even be here," the surgeon said a few days ago. I'm not quite sure of the effect its all had on Dad, he's lost weight that's for sure, about 1/2 stone in hospital and about another 1/2 stone in the last week. His big comment is that he just feels like he doesn't want to eat, apart from the bare minimum to keep him alive. In his own words, the old fogeys at Shimpling are up in arms over this and want to feed him gigantic roast dinners with monster potatoes and things.

I wonder if the way I'm writing is somehow different now to before, it's almost as if Dad is part way out of it yet I'm still reminiscing that there may still be problems. Pneumonia is one thing he has contracted in his left lung but in the grand scheme of things that can hardly be compared to your major arteries giving up. Also Dad is very very tired, making just a little bit of progress day by day, he came out of hospital about a week ago now. The greatest effect being in hospital has on you is that it conditions you somewhat, having been in an environment where you can't sleep and are suddenly awoken with a nurse taking your blood pressure. The other day Dad slept for about 14 hours in one go, that aside from the sleeping pattern of getting up every few hours in the night.

It's brilliant to talk to and see Dad again, so brilliant. Is there a God?, sure does make you wonder, as Dad is one of those 10% along with Roger Taylor who I've just been reading about. Is it just fate and an overall attitude which pulls people through these things. Well who knows as we could be at it for weeks getting all philosophical when the truth is, you don't know, I don't know, but there just may be that distant possibility so to discount it would be disrespectful to the big guy/gal up there and disrespectful to others too. Who knows!? But enough of that, that wasn't foremost on my mind.

In all I would think that I writing this to document our experiences as well as to support and help those who will either go through it themselves or have someone close go through it. Dad is expecting to be about 3 months on the mend before he's able to run about the country fields after one of the fogey's 7-course dinners which are no doubt be brewed and prepared for him as we speak.

The fogeys just incase you are wondering are our family elders, all in their 80's and whom make and debate all family decisions, it's a very strange way of doing things. They only discovered electricity a few years ago and believe what they read in newspapers. You can't fault them really, they are in their 80's afterall although if not what somewhat unconventional.

So back to Dad, what happens next? We wait I think, slowly and surely. One thing to come out of this is that his previous high blood pressure before the AAA has returned to almost normal levels. The Doctors have said that his AAA could have been there for as long as 10 years. They have confirmed that his artery was leaking before he arrived at the hospital. Other figures brandished about is that he lost 3.6 pints of blood during the operation. All a little bit "wow," isn't it?

We, as in my Mum, Dad, and I are being chased at the moment by the publicity team at Addenbrookes. Not entirely sure what that's about, maybe you could figure that one out for me. It's strange you know that to go through something like this as either the patient or as the family members just makes you grateful, and to be high profile and talked about isn't particularly on the agenda. Has Dad done well? Is it headline print for the hospital? Sorry I don't know where I'm going with this. We're all here on this support group and you may think that an AAA is common, even so a miraculous recovery, but we're all equal. We all have something in common, and to the outside world it may be serious, but those people aren't going through the emotions and pain I have seen on here. Enough said before I over-analyse this beyond reason. I'm sure you understand the confusion I'm having in writing this.

So where now? We wait. We wait for Dad to slowly recover. Mum has been taking him on little drives to the local town. My hope is to take him to Duxford - The Imperial War Museum is a few months time, it's something we had on the cards for years but never got round to. Perhaps this is it, a second chance.