Things have gotten a bit clearer now that I’ve had a chance to properly talk with my mom. Apparently, my dad had a stomach ulcer rupture.
The ulcer was caused by drug interaction side effects of some anti-inflammatories he’s been taking for his back and daily low dose aspirin he’s taking to thin his blood. He drove himself in to the local hospital on Thursday when he felt some very sharp pains, and, after being violently ill, followed by almost a day of tests, waiting and general faffing, they decided the situation was urgent enough to transfer him to a bigger hospital where he was operated on to repair the damage via keyhole surgery.
He’s now stable and alert and he’s going to stay for observations for the next week to make sure the patch they put on the ulcer holds. If that doesn’t work, they’ll need to remove part of his stomach, but the odds of that needing to be done are slim.
He’s on an IV diet right now, but that should switch to a liquid diet in a day or so, with solids being gradually reintroduced. Once everything is back to normal, they’ll do a colonoscopy to make sure there’s no other problems.
