So I guess it's time for an update

I haven't really wanted to talk about it incessantly because I really like to keep this blog on the light side. Hell, life is hard and serious enough without reading about other people's problems, right? You want to come here and read about botched bikini waxing and Waffle House and all that other fun stuff, right?

I've had a few e-mails asking me about my dad. And I do appreciate everyone's concern and interest because it means a lot. So much that I can't even express it in words.

So, my dad is still in the rehabilitation center. Yesterday he met with his case worker and they've determined that he still needs to stay at least two more weeks. I thought he'd be pretty bummed out about it, but I think deep down he realizes that he really needs to be stronger before he can come home. Put it to you this way - if he was to fall in our house, my mom could not even remotely help him get up and they would be majorly screwed. So he needs to be able to negotiate through the house successfully (especially with the umpteen gazillion little Oriental rugs my mother has scattered through the house like a deathtrap).

He gets physical therapy at least once a day, but he's also been working on it by himself and has become a master of a wheelchair but can also slowly walk up and down the hall. He can get in and out of a chair as long as it has arms. He can get himself to the bathroom.

The one thing that has cropped up again is more fluid in his chest. He went Monday afternoon to have more fluid aspirated out of his chest and they got a liter out - and determined that there's some fluid in the other side of his chest but not enough to aspirate it yet. Blech. The thing is that they're not exactly sure if the fluid is new, or if it's leftover from the hospital where his chest tube was falling out and they went ahead and removed it. And of course, everyone is dancing around the subject that it's possibly congestive heart failure. I really wish someone would just freaking say it is or isn't, because it is hanging over my head like a dark cloud.

Every night when I talk to him, Dad seems so upbeat - he is just so determined to get stronger and healthier and come home. That attitude will come a long way.

I just can't help but feel like this is just the beginning, though. That this isn't a blip on the radar - that this will be just one in an ongoing series of health problems that will begin to plague him. I hope it's not true, but for God's sake - the man is 84 years old and has been through so much in the past 32 days that most people probably wouldn't have survived.

I alluded in one of my earlier posts that the day my dad fell into the coma, that I called a friend for advice that proved invaluable and I have such a huge amount of gratitude that he was willing to share one of the most painful experiences in his life with me.

Cat Door M, who is one of my best friends, went through the death of his mother almost three years ago from esophageal cancer - which is apparently a horrible way to die because you slowly strangle to death. Ironically, his mother-in-law and father-in-law died from the same type of cancer, so he knew from the diagnosis that his mother would not survive.

I asked him how he dealt with finding out his mother was going to die - that my dad had already made peace with God and had decided to put his fate in God's hands as to whether he lived or died and was at peace with it. But that I wasn't able to give it up to God at that point, and what did I need to do?

"Do you want your dad to suffer?" he asked. "No, of course not!" I replied. "Well, you have to realize that if your dad is at peace with things, that you are going to have to get over your own selfishness and allow God to take him if that's his will. You want him to live for you, but what kind of quality of life does he have?" he said. "Liz, this is the hardest thing you are ever going to have to do in your lifetime, but you have got to do this for yourself and you've got to do this for your dad. Go back in there and be strong. Hold his hand. Be there for him. Enjoy every second you have with him."

I took that to heart. I went back in the hospital, washed the streaked mascara off of my face, and went back to the Cardiac unit where I spent the next six hours by his bedside holding his hand. And I smiled, remembering how he let me have strawberry sundaes every night for a week when I was six years old. How proud he was at my first lead in the ballet recital. The smile on his face when I (finally) graduated from college. How much he smiled as he was walking me up the aisle on my wedding day. And his excitement to hold his grandson that shares his middle name and also his love of ice cream and books. And about a million other little moments that we've shared.

I knew at that moment that I didn't want his life to be defined by the previous two weeks. I wanted it to be defined by the 84 years prior to those two weeks.

He's come so far. He has a long way to go. And I think, in some way, I have come a long way myself at realizing what's important in this whole thing. It's not worrying about something we can't control. It's not mourning for the life that he had prior to a month ago.

It's enjoying the now. And being proud of my dad and his amazing will to live.