The operation went well. I spoke to the doctor just a minute ago. He said that at least 90% of the clotted blood has been removed. The bleeding was not in the brain, just within the skull. The rest of the blood that is left will be drained out gradually, and if necessary, they will need to go in again and remove more. He is responding well, but still weak from the surgery. His response is not fully normal, but that will take some time. There were various complicating factors such as his age, kidney problems, diabetes, blood pressure, and other items. The doctors were not able to give him general anesthesia, so only local anesthesia was given. He is still in the ICU. Let’s pray that he will recover quickly.

He needs to be hospitalized for at least two more weeks to get things settled. The irony is that he has been going to this same hospital three times per week for dialysis. The one hour plus drive there is quite a drain for him at his age and his condition. But this is the closest hospital with a full time Nephrologist on staff. Kerala, with 31.8 million people, has only 15 nephrologists for the entire state. That is quite an alarming situation, and that affects the care given to the patients. Most doctors leave the country and go abroad for work.

For the next month, the blood thinning medicines cannot be used for him, which makes his dialysis more difficult. They say that this may result in less quality of the purification of the blood that takes place through the dialysis.

Thanks again for your prayers.