Keeping the faith

Yesterday I rolled into my hometown around 4 PM, not knowing what I was going to find. Dad hadn't had a great night on Thursday night, my sister is at the point of exhaustion, and The Queen of Denial (my mother) was still obsessing over planting tulip bulbs.

My sister and I decided to scoot down to the oh-so-lovely cafeteria to get a quick dinner. If I haven't mentioned it before, this hospital's food reaches an all-time low in terms of quality. One of the feature entrees last night was a taco salad - sounds yummy, right? Sure, if you like having a taco shell filled with what looked like dog barf. It was pretty gross. I ended up with a sandwich and salad while my sister Little Miss Daring opted for salmon and vegetables. We sat and finished up our dinner and as we were eating the last few bites, Mom and Dad's preacher showed up since he had chaplain duty that night.

He's a lovely guy, but damn the guy could talk the legs off a billy goat. The other night he stayed over two hours to the point Dad was faking sleep so the dude would leave. As a matter of fact, one of the first things Dad said after his surgery was, "Y'all keep that preacher out of here!" But he spied us and set his tray down so we stayed for a while talking to him about the situation with my dad.

The other night, my dad asked my sister, "What do people do without faith?" It seems as though he's turned things over to God at this point - it's not that he's given up, au contraire...he's more determined than ever to get the hell out of the hospital. But I think one way or the other, Dad knows that God has a plan for him and has accepted whatever the outcome is.

This news hit me like a brick. I don't know how I can turn this over to God or whomever is pulling the strings around here. I'm not ready to let him go.

I grew up going to church every Sunday, but when I moved away from here I never found a church home that I was happy with. Couple that with marrying a man from another religion and his own hang-ups about organized religion, and I have not been able to get him to agree to go to church with me. I think it's important to expose Monkey Man to religion, so I do read him a children's Bible every now and then when he asks for it. He understands about God, Jesus, and heaven, and doing right from wrong. But it seems like there's just such a huge hole gaping in my life and has been for a long time - I just have been trying to patch the hole with other things to fill the void.

I don't know that it's organized religion per se that I miss. I think I miss the community and support that I got from my church. The outpouring that we've received since this all began ten days ago has been overwhelming, and most of it has been from our church friends here.

I miss that. And I miss having my faith. But it also makes me wonder, why is God letting my dad suffer like he has been? I don't know that I can find a satisfactory answer for that. Early this morning after watching my dad get sick in a pan again I sat in the dark and prayed for God to help him through this. I haven't prayed so earnestly in almost five years, and I'm hoping God or someone heard me. It's just so hard watching the man who has always been my rock being reduced to a child-like state.

In terms of Dad's progress, he had a better night last night. They are giving him IV nutrition at last, but he is still having blood pressure issues and they can't seem to regulate it. They keep saying that once he's able to take oral meds that the variety of options available almost quadruples so he'll be able to get some relief, and I sure hope so. The NG tube is still in and they are continuing to pump crap out of his stomach, which apparently isn't too far from the norm for this surgery. They haven't made any kind of prediction about when he's coming home, but I think he'll be in at least until the middle of next week at the absolute earliest.

On the bright side, he's been planning his escape route. All I have to say is that once he gets rid of the NG tube down his nose and all those IV's, they better hide all the extra bed sheets. The man is serious about getting out of there. Talk about keeping the faith.