Update on grandpa

My apologies for my previous posting! Eunice has complained about my Korean posting. You, children in our family, who can not read Korean. Please remember it's all your fault for not being able to read Korean!!!! How many times have we, grown-ups, emphasized to you of the importance of learning Korean since you were a little kid?

1. On 20th, Saturday, grandpa was found lying on the his apartment hallway by the neighbor tenants and carried into his unit. According to what the neighbors said to me, he asked them to carry him to grandma's room. So this must've been another episode related to his high blood pressure since the confusion is one of his symptoms whenever his blood pressure soars high. Up until 19th night, he had stayed at my house for about a week. He always insists that he would stay in his apartment. But last time, he volunteered to come in to my house and made everyone wondering why. But we found out the reason why soon. He had left my house on 20th morning and took his car leaving a note at the door step saying "I am leaving. 4AM". Previously I took his car to my house and take his key away from him because we all worried about him getting into car accidents.

2. As soon as I received a phone call from his friend at the apartment, I went there to check. The blood pressure he had measured and recorded right before it happened was 180 over 90. The high blood pressure was the reason. Because one of his symptoms when his pressure goes up is the confusion. It accompanies few other symptoms such as being weakened, blurry vision, hearing high pitched continuous metalic sound that no other people can hear, and the slow speech. All these symptoms go away after few minutes pass.

3. I contacted our family physician, Dr. Lee, about this and he ordered me to take grandpa to the hospital ER in Petersburg, VA, where his office is nearby. After finding nothing wrong out from few tests(CT scan, X-ray, and EKG/ECG), a rookie ER doctor gave a nasty look on his face and said "Nothing wrong and normal with him!" So I told him that I am aware of that and Dr. Lee is going to move him to the patient room so that he can bring in all the specialists to pinpoint what causes these sysmptoms and do the treatment. So that guy gave ER nurses an order to move him up.

4. In Sunday morning, Dr. Lee visited grandpa to talk to him. At around the noon, grandpa suddenly got out of the bed and grabbed his jacket trying to put in on. So I asked him why. He said "Don't you see the riot is going on around here? Let's run away from this scene!" I calmed him down to the bed and saw his focus/vision was blurred as well. Then the nurse rushed in saying her beeper went off because the system detected his heart rate went up abnormally. I asked her to take his blood pressure right then. It was 190 over 100. But good thing is that all these numbers are recorded into the system this time along with the symptoms. Later in the afternoon, a neuroloy doctor came by to see him and a heart doctor visited with his ultra-sound heart scanner.

5. After seeing all the doctors yesterday, I finally came back home at night. Today, Monday, I will go back to him after I get off work. Unfortunately, I've spent all my annual and sick leave time on grandma's and grandpa's recent hospital stays and have no choice but to work regular hours and spend time with them in the evening.

Please don't be alarmed too much because he is pretty normal and healthy other than one or two brief episodes of these a day. We need all your prayers so that doctors find the exact cause and the solution. Now it's not safe for him to stay in the apartment by himself or stay in my house either. As you know I and my wife work all the time and grandma can not hear well from her room and she is a patient herself as well. So long, kids!