I have just returned this evening from the hospital. Dad is now in the Critical Care Unit, or CCU. They were inserting a breathing tube and taking chest X-rays when I arrived, so I didn’t actually see him today, but my mom was with him all day. Things have taken a decidedly more serious turn. Here’s the Merck Manual on Acute Pancreatitis. Read it and you’ll know why, especially if you look at the Complications section. It is not happy reading.
Worse perhaps, the paragraph that begins the Prognosis section details 11 signs which offer a guide to the patient’s mortality rate. At this stage I do not know the answer to any of the indicators other than the first: My dad is over 55 years of age. My mission tomorrow will be to find out about the other stats.
I will be at the hospital in the morning, and intend to have another update posted here by mid-day. Unless things go very poorly, Dad will be in the hospital (and likely in CCU) for at least two more weeks. Odds are that it will be closer to 3 or 4.