Dad came in to the ER at St. John's on Tuesday afternoon because he was coughing up blood. Apparently it had been going on for a few days, but he kept thinking it would clear up on its own. They did a CT scan shortly thereafter and didn't see anything out of the ordinary, but decided to keep him overnight for observation and a bronchoscopy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronchoscopy). The bronchoscopy happened Wednesday around noon, but some severe bleeding occurred and they had to intubate him to keep his lungs from filling with the blood.

The medical staff were able to stabilize him and he's been sedated and intubated since Wednesday afternoon. There was another bronchoscopy Thursday morning and they found a clot in his bronchial tube. They're still not sure what is causing the problem in the lung because they didn't want to take the chance of knocking the clot in the bronchial tube loose and restarting the bleeding.

Today he's scheduled for another scope, but this time in the OR so that if the bleeding starts again, they'll be able to take care of it immediately, and they can take any other necessary action, depending on what they find with the scope. There is something under the clot that caused all the bleeding, but we won't know what that is until after they wash the clot off during the scope today.

Surgery is scheduled for between noon and 2PM today, and we probably won't know anything more until after.

We'll keep you updated.