It's been a roller coaster I never want to ride again

After my last cheerful post saying my dad was responding to treatment, things went downhill and fast. Aside from Hayden's birth and diagnosis, this has been the scariest week of my life.
The day after I wrote my last post, his lypase counts surged back up. They concluded that he must have a gall stone lodged in his common duct. What they didn't tell me or Mom at the time was just how serious it was becoming.
They told us on Wednesday morning that the gastroenterologist needed to take him for a procedure that would send a scope down past the stomach, through the intestines to the common duct where he could then remove the stone.
This is where my world fell apart in just a few minutes. The Dr. came back and told us he couldn't do it. Dad's insides were so swollen that he could get through the intestines. The stone was still there. He then told us that some of his lab work had come back and his kidneys were only functioning at 30%. His liver was becoming very jaundiced and he was turning yellow right before our eyes. His pancreas was in such severe condition that it was actually starting to feed on itself.
Within the hour we were talking to the new ICU doctor that had been assigned to Dad. He added to the list that his lungs were probably filling with fluid and that he was at an extreme risk for a blood clot in his lung. He looked us in the eyes and told us this was about as severe as it gets. His body was going through systematic organ failure.
Mom and I went into the hallway so we wouldn't upset dad and we cried into each other's arms. At one point I was practically hysterical. I just kept saying "I'm only 28. I still need my Daddy!". I could not imagine a world without my dad. Horrible things go through your head when you are put in this position.
He was immediately moved to the ICU where we were told he was their sickest patient. At this point, he had to get that stone out in order to get better but he was way too unstable and he never would have made it through surgery at that point. The ICU doctor later told Mom that he really thought we might lose Dad that night. I slept that night in a recliner in his room but I never really slept. I watched him like a hawk, watching his blood oxygen level on the monitor and praying he would make it through the night.
As soon as I could pull myself together I sent out messages on Facebook and started sending out prayer request email to practically everyone in my address book asking them to pray. And then amazing things started to happen. Over the past four days Dad started improving. His kidney function was improving (it's now 100%) and his jaundice started going away. He was able to go from needing 100% oxygen to only 45%. Numbers that needed to go down were going down and numbers that needed to go up were going up.
On the second day of Dad's improvement, the ICU told Mom that he couldn't believe the way he was improving. "There is no explanation for why he could be doing this well", he said to mom. "Yes there is", she said "There are people around the world lifting him up in prayer." "Well that has to be it then", he replied. He actually made enough progress that he was able to have his surgery today to remove his gall bladder, something they didn't think would happen for quite a while. They also think that "somehow" (prayer) the stone in his common duct wasn't lodged there anymore.
There were still risks with today's surgery. We were told that, because of his situation, he was at higher risk for heart attack or stroke during surgery and that it was very likely he would be on a respirator for a while afterward. None of those happened! They were able to remove that stinkin' gall bladder successfully and he came out of recovery with nothing more than a regular oxygen mask on his face.
We still have a long way to go. They need to do another test when his abdominal swelling goes down to make sure there aren't any other gall stones that escaped. They don't want another one making its way down to the common duct and starting this process all over again. Dad is probably looking at 1-2 months in the hospital based on how quickly he recovers and it will be about 6 months before he is fully healed and back to his old self.
Dad is truly a testament to the power of prayer.
The week before this happened I started a Beth Moore Bible study on Esther. It talks about God's providence and how, even in the times where you can't see Him you still know He is still there. It talked about how even though God has the power to reach down and create miracles on His own, He sometimes chooses to do His miracles through people down here on Earth. To me, those people are all the amazing doctor's who were helping Dad and all the friends and complete strangers who were praying everyday for him.
Do you think it was a coincidence I started that study days before this all happened? I think not.