Jack in the Hospital

Here is a post for all of you who know my father-in-law, Jack Holladay. They took him by ambulance to the hospital yesterday with severe back pain. He was so weak he couldn't get himself off the bed or couch, even to go to the bathroom. They found a fracture in his T12 spine and they think since that is where the pain is, that he made things worse when he was bending over picking the heads off the dandelions in his yard. He is feeling better today than he did yesterday. Dave and I got to the hospital at 7:00 p.m. last night and I found him all alone in the ER. I thought it was so sad. I sat and held his hand while he went in and out of consciousness (he was a little doped up on morphine and couldn't stay awake unless I talked to him the whole time). I sent Dave to check on his mom and I went with Jack to get a CT scan. Dave came back and we stayed with him until he was comfortably in his room and ready to go to sleep for the night. So far the doctors haven't found anything bad wrong with him that will cause long term disability. Other family members were with him throughout the day so he wasn't alone the whole time, just for a few hours....still, that must have felt very lonely. It was so sad to see him lying there with that O2 mask on his face, not really cognitive of what all was going on. We think we will be in the hospital a few more days. His O2 saturations are too low for them to release him right now. He was back to his old self when we visited him this evening. We hope that is very promising.