And now, the rest of the story

I'm back from Doc in the Box with a fresh bunch of azythromicin with the hopes that it will kill whatever funk this is I've caught. Tell you what, the look on the doctor's face when I told him that I'd been sleeping on the hospital room floor was priceless. Try it sometime, it's kind of a mix of disbelief and sheer horror.

So here's the scoop. As it turns out, they ended up doing another throat culture on Monkey Man on Sunday and it turns out that he had a staph infection on his tonsils. Not strep, but staph. Lovely, huh? I can't even begin to imagine how the hell this has happened. But apparently, you can get really weird symptoms from staph infections, including swollen joints (like his leg and neck/shoulder problems), rashes, etc. Velllly interestink. But we didn't even find this out until this morning when the doctor came in yet again with a fresh set of discharge papers and I finally cornered her into telling us if they'd ever narrowed down exactly what had caused all of this.

We had originally been released to come home yesterday; however, Monkey Man acted kind of odd all morning, took a nap, ate some lunch, and then proceeded to yak all over the place. It was like almost scoring a touchdown and getting a leg cramp on the 5-yard line....sooooo close. Joey was pretty upset and disappointed - and the strange thing was that Monkey Man and I were just like, "oh well, there's always tomorrow." I guess after spending all that time with my dad in the hospital, I've almost gotten a little blase about everything and nothing phased me at all.

One thing I will say is that we had excellent nursing and physician care at the hospital. It was such a breath of fresh air after dealing with the bush doctors down at my parents' hospital that I called our HR person at work and am trying to lobby her to change our company's usual Christmas donation from one charity to the PICU at the hospital. Seriously, it was very impressive.

As scary as everything was, though, I knew that what we were going through was just a drop in the bucket compared to most of the other families on that unit. The four-month old little girl named Kaylie across the hall who almost died on Sunday. The eleven-year old boy named Dustin who was just diagnosed with bone cancer. Some of the kids there will never go home. It's a sobering thought.

I drove home from the Doc in the Box this afternoon and finally let myself cry. Damn, it has been such a horrible two months that I can barely remember what life was like before my dad got sick. I'm hoping that some normalcy returns soon.

Escape from Alcatraz

We are all finally home.

Monkey Man is doing well. More on that later.

I feel like ass, however - sore throat, achy, sinus crap. It's off to the Doc in the Box for me as soon as I get Monkey Man settled in for a nap.

Thanks to everyone for the comments, the blog shout-outs, and all the phone calls and e-mails I've gotten since Saturday. You don't know how much that means to me, especially after the hell of the past two months.

Now please excuse me for a bit while I pull myself together enough to go get drugs. Legal or illegal, it's kind of a moot point for me at this stage as long as it makes my throat stop hurting.

Here we go again

I'm home for a quick nap and a much-needed shower after spending the last 24 hours at the PICU.

First, let me say that Monkey Man is doing better. They are giving him lots of high-powered antibiotics and his blood cell counts are moving back into normal range, which is very good news. But we still don't know what caused all of this.

Monkey Man's pediatrician from birth has been my sister's husband, R. He and the rest of the doctors and nurses on his staff have always gone above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to Monkey Man and his umpteen gazillion illnesses...and he's been there a lot. To the point where we almost have our very own exam room and drawer in the filing cabinet for his thick file.

When we moved last year, it became apparent pretty quickly that a 45- minute drive to my brother-in-law's office wasn't really practical - especially when we have several small practices here locally. We tried one out, liked it, and decided that if it was just the typical cold/sinus stuff, we'd take him there - but for the big guns, still take him to see R and his partners.

A week ago on Friday, Monkey Man told Joey when he picked him up from school that he didn't feel well and wanted to go to the doctor. When your 4-year-old asks to go to the doctor, you know it's not good. So I took him in to the local doctor on Saturday morning, where he was diagnosed with Hand, Foot and Mouth disease. I was a little skeptical because he'd already had it 2 other times and the symptoms just didn't add up...no sores, no high fever, and he had this odd rash on his elbow and his stomach hurt.

By Monday, he still felt punky and was still running a low fever - not to mention his sinuses were very congested. So I took him back in and made them run all kinds of tests...including a blood test. His white cell count was slightly elevated, but they didn't want to do anything and insisted it was still viral.

By Wednesday, the fever was gone so we sent Monkey Man to school a half-day on Thursday and almost a full day on Friday. On Friday, he didn't eat any lunch and by that evening he was running a fever of 102 again.

Yesterday morning, when I went to get him out of bed, he was absolutely hysterical because his leg was in excruciating pain and he couldn't put any weight on it. And his neck was stiff. And he had this odd purple pin-prick rash all over his torso, arms, and legs. I called the local doctor - and of course, the beeyotch appointment person couldn't "fit us in" until 11 AM. Joey started getting even more worried about Monkey Man so he suggested calling R to see what his opinion was. R told us to go ahead and bring him on in to his office.

Monkey Man looked horrible - white, almost translucent skin, huge bags under his eyes, very red/goopy eyes, and generally listless unless you touched his leg at which point he became worse than a wildcat stuffed in a burlap sack. R's nurse had already run blood cultures on him before R came in to see us - he looked at the numbers, did a quick assessment, and then excused himself for a minute.

In five minutes, he was back. He told us that he had contacted the head of the best pediatric ICU in the city and we were to go straight there - don't pass go, don't stop at admissions, just get there fast. Joey and I looked at each other and our hearts sank. R's initial assessment was that it was either meningitis or Kawasaki Disease, neither of which are very good.

To make a long story short, they ran a bunch of blood tests and did a spinal tap. Initial results have pretty much ruled out meningitis, although we have to wait for the culture to come back tomorrow before we can be 100% sure. There is no test for Kawasaki - it's done more by symptoms and process of elimination. The good news is that we have him at the best place possible and within the timeframe that we can avoid heart damage and long-term reprocussions.

Now - as of today, we have another 24 hours to go to wait on spinal fluid and blood cultures to be complete, but he is responding well to the antibiotics. He does apparently have tonsillitis, and Dr. D believes that perhaps Monkey Man developed some sort of toxicity in his blood as a reaction to the tonsillitis...but we won't know for sure without the cultures. And there may be a chance that we may never know what caused this.

So, it's a waiting game. He's better and out of danger that we know of, and when I left him this morning he was having a Starbucks Vanilla Bean Frappucino and watching "Ice Age" on DVD, so he's definitely better than yesterday. There is a small chance that he will be released tomorrow, but I am not getting my hopes up until we have more answers.

There are times in my life that I thought I wouldn't be able to bear another day on this earth. This weekend, I realized that maybe I'm a little stronger than I thought. I'm just wondering what else can be thrown at me before I crack.

I can't believe this is happening to us

Monkey Man is in the pediatric intensive care unit at one of the local hospitals.

Preliminary thoughts are either Kawasaki disease or spinal meningitis. Neither good.

Will post more later when we find out what the test results are. Spinal tap was this afternoon and we should know more in the next day.

Please keep us in your thoughts.

The terrible, no good, very bad daughter

Well, in addition to being up for Mother of the Year, I think I'm a definite shoe-in for Daughter of the Year too. In Hell.

Since my dad became sick, the family dynamics that have been lying stagnant have come back with a force that leaves me somewhat breathless. On one hand, my sister and I have confirmation that we both have similar beliefs and desires of the care for our parents despite the large age difference between us. We make a very good team, as in Bad Cop/Good Cop...she tends to put things in a much nicer and subtler way, whereas I'm the one that is totally balls-to-the-wall, in your face but not in a mean way. My two brothers are pretty clueless - my brother P the Salsa King actually came right away when my dad was so sick without asking any questions. My other brother D, the Idiot Savant (with heavy emphasis on IDIOT), actually had the balls to ask me, "So, exactly how sick is Dad, because I haven't bought my plane ticket yet...." It's one of those moments when you wonder how the four of us ended up so vastly different despite coming from the same gene pool.

And then there's my mother. I've written about her before - I love her so much, but sometimes I wonder if there's any heart lurking inside of her chest. I'm almost 37 years old and she has never once told me that she loves me. Can you believe that? I mean, how can a mother NOT tell their child that she loves them? But mine can. Watching her deal with my dad in the hospital was heartbreaking because there would be times that he would reach for her hand and she would literally bat him away like an annoying bug. I wanted so badly to reach across and grab her by the shoulders and scream, "You've been married to the man for almost 60 years, at least could you pretend to like him?" But I didn't. And the night he was in the coma, I saw my mom cry for the very first time ever...and then I knew she really did care despite the stony facade.

The issue at hand right now is equipping the house for my dad to be able to get around. The fighting started the first week he was in the hospital (when he made it through the surgery and we expected him home right away) in the bathroom accessories at Lowe's. My sister and I had already plotted that we needed to get some basic stuff for Dad to use at home - things like rails for the bathtub, a bath seat, a handicap toilet retrofit thing, stuff like that. Stuff that they will eventually need anyway due to their advancing age. Well, the minute my mom got a whiff of our plans she immediately got defensive and insisted that they didn't need "that stuff cluttering up our house." At one point several weeks later when I was discussing hiring a contractor to add another handrail on the steps to their basement (which is finished and has a full bath in it) she came up with the brilliant plan that Dad could just walk around the outside of the house and go in the basement door if he needed to take a shower. Um, yeah - the guy just lost pints of blood, has been bedridden for weeks, and you think he's going to prance around the outside of the house with no walkways, no ramps, no handrails? Puh-leeze.

And so, the trip down the River of Denial was well on its way. And when he came home last week, she hadn't done anything other than finally put together the bathseat my sister and I forced her to buy, and she purchased the wrong type of walker for him to use.

Can you see where this is going? According to what my sister finally pried out of my mom, Dad fell twice last week getting up in the night to use the bathroom. It made my blood run cold. The first time, he was able to get himself up. The second time required the help of the rescue squad.

So I ended up doing something I hate to do - I called someone to exploit their professional knowledge. Cat Door M's wife, who I will call L, is a well-known physical therapy expert to the point that she teaches seminars nationally. I spent 30 minutes on the phone with her last night getting advice about what we can do to make sure that Dad is properly equipped and receiving the proper care. One thing will be making sure that the PT clinic is helping him with strength and balance instead of endurance...not that endurance isn't important, but right now it's not what he needs to focus on. We need to check out the owners of the clinic - are you aware that sometimes doctors will own shares of a PT clinic and therefore will assign a patient there because they make money off of it - even if it's not a good fit for the patient? And she gave me a few names in town to call if we need help. And the most interesting part for me was her acknowledgment that most of the time, the family won't listen to other family members about things that need to be done - so we need to use the PT clinic as our weapon to make sure that they pound into my parents' heads what needs to be happening so that they don't injure themselves.

The number one thing she told me was that 95% of falls happen at night because the person doesn't have a light on - and the simplest thing we could do was get a lamp to put close enough for Dad to turn it on before even trying to get out of bed. That way he can get his orientation, see well enough to negotiate out of the room and across the hall to the bathroom.

So, armed with this information and indignant that my parents have been hiding the falls from us, I called my mom last night.

It didn't go well.

I explained to her that not equipping the house properly was not only putting Dad at risk, but her as well. If she gets injured because of him falling (like he knocks her over, or she pulls/breaks something trying to help him get up) then we will really be up the creek. Not to mention the fact that Dad could potentially get a head injury, break a hip, or worse. I explained that we love them and care for them, but her refusal to equip the house properly could potentially make the situation worse than it already is. Not to mention that my sister and I want to know immediately when this stuff is happening so that we can help.

I think she tuned me out after she heard my suggestion about buying the lamp. According to her, Dad will not be getting out of bed at night anymore because she's making him use a bedside urinal...which yes, is a potential solution, but what if the guy needs a drink of water or to throw up or something that he needs to get up for? She argued and argued with me about the goddamn lamp.

And that's when I lost it. I cried and yelled and talked to my mother like I haven't talked to her since I dropped out of college back in 1989 and took a year's hiatus. Not one of my better moments in general, and probably my worst moment with my mother.

When all was said and done, she did promise to buy Dad a touch lamp. And to report the second fall to the PT when they go this morning. And that from now on she will let my sister and I know when something happens.

"I'm not a mean person," she said to me. "I know you're not, Mom, but you've got to be realistic with everything now. I know it's hard, I know this is an enormous change for you, but this is also your life now and we're here to help you make it as safe and comfortable for you and Dad as we can." And with that, she hung up.

Today, my heart is aching. I feel horrible about yelling at my mom, but I also know it had to be done. Even if she didn't hear me, I feel like I have said everything that I needed to say to protect my dad.

My sister is heading down there for a few days to assess the situation, talk to the PT (and see if they will perhaps either do a home assessment of Dad or at least give my mother a list of what equipment they need), and go to a doctor's appointment with Dad. And she's going down armed for bear knowing that my mom, The Queen of Denial, is in full effect.

I never thought it would be this hard. Never.

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.

Back from neverland

On Friday, Ernesto ended up knocking out our electricity several times in the morning and finally for good until around 8 PM. Do you know how hellish it is to entertain a preschooler with no electricity and no ability to go outside or do anything cool?

We colored. We read books. We wrestled. We made up songs. I ran out of ideas and felt like beating my head against the wall.

Luckily for me, I had a hair appointment that afternoon so we loaded up in the car and went to Joey's office, where Monkey Man had fun playing with the computer and some of Joey's business partner's toy trucks that he keeps in his office. And dammit, no power by dinnertime so we just had to go out for dinner. Life's a bitch, ain't it?

We headed down to my parents' house Saturday morning at the buttcrack of dawn. Joey dropped us off and proceeded to the first football game of the season and I heisted Mom's minivan and took Monkey Man to see my dad. I wish I had a picture of how Dad's face lit up when he saw MM run into the room, it was awesome.

We just got back home about an hour ago. I am ready to be home for a few days, ready to resume some kind of routine and sleep in my own bed and fix my own dinner. I have barely gotten any exercise in the past two-plus weeks and can really feel it even though I've lost about 6 pounds. I also feel like I've aged about 10 years in the past two weeks.

My dad is doing great. All of the IV's are gone, the chest tube is out, the only things left are his Foley catheter and a little oxygen tube they put in his nose (cannula? not sure of the name). He seemed a little down in the dumps yesterday after discussing his next move with the doctor - which will be to a rehabilitation center. He wants to come home so badly, but he knows that the rehab is necessary to make sure he is strong enough to walk, bathe himself, and all that other good stuff. He's been doing really well in physical therapy and I am just so damn proud of him that I can barely stand it. My sister and I both gave him a little pep talk and today he seemed a lot more optimistic about the rehab thing. But we'll see.

One thing that has come of all this is that I've realized that even though there's about a 20-year age difference between my sister and myself, we're way more alike than I knew. And we both have the same feelings about caring for my parents. We've cheered each other on for the last two weeks, alternately playing Good Cop/Bad Cop when necessary, and giving each other a shoulder or ear when needed.

The other thing I've realized - or maybe not realized, but just had reinforced - is how little my brothers really want to deal with my parents. Maybe it's a guy thing, or maybe it's just because they know my sister and I will take care of things, but it's pretty hurtful to find out that they have viewed a lot of this as an inconvenience to themselves. Excuse me, but I have effectively used up all of my sick and vacation time and have taken the last week and any future trips down there as unpaid leave, but have never breathed a word of it to anyone. To me, nothing else matters.

Before I left today, my dad thanked me for coming to take care of him. "Daddy, there is nowhere else on this earth that I'd rather be than helping you get better." And I meant every word of it.

I want my sense of humor back. I want to be able to write about things other than death, blood thinner, and family dynamics. Do they have a rehab center for that?

The strength of the heart

With Ernesto bearing up the coast, my parents ganged up on me yesterday and sent my ass packing. I was originally intending to come home this morning, but with a predicted 5" of rain, I figured maybe they were right so I high-tailed it on home yesterday, Ernesto nipping at my heels.

We continued to get good news yesterday. The cardiologist had done an ultrasound on Dad's heart on Tuesday and it is in fantastic shape. The surgeon said the chest tube can come out either today or Saturday because the fluid has all been drained. The pulmonary specialist said that Dad does not have pneumonia, that the breathing problems were caused by all the fluid in his chest making his lung collapse. Each one of them took us to the side and said it was a serious miracle that Dad had survived all of this.

And yesterday morning, Dad ate everything on his breakfast tray except the mystery meat (we think it was some kind of pork cutlet) and the napkin.

Last night, I called the hospital room to let my mom or sister know that I had gotten home safely and my dad answered the phone:

Me: Hey Daddy, it's Liz!

Dad: I know.

Me: What are you doing answering the phone?

Dad: Well, someone had to answer it. Everyone else is downstairs trying to find something edible in the cafeteria.

I think he's feeling much better.

The funny thing this week is that the nursing school is back in session and the students have had Dad as one of their case studies. He has gotten so horribly spoiled by them waiting on him hand and foot that he will be unbearable after they move on to another messed-up patient. But in the meantime, he's just beaming at all the attention. They all think he is the cutest thing they've ever seen and he has a huge fan club here at the hospital.

You know you've been at the hospital too long when:

1. You get the employee discount in the cafeteria
2. You know all of the weird shortcuts to get to the cafeteria
3. Random people start stopping you and asking how your dad is doing

I'll probably be headed back down on Saturday for a quick trip with Monkey Man. Apparently, my one brother already bailed out yesterday and left my sister holding the bag. My other brother, who even though he knew how sick Dad was left on a hiking trip in the Cascades without any way to get in touch with him, flew in last night. He is such a clueless fuckhead that I can't even talk about it right now.

Off to crash on the couch for a few minutes before Monkey Man rears his head. I just wish I could get the beeping of the IV pumps out of my head because it's slowly driving me insane.

Apparently we're not out of miracles yet

I swear, my dad must have a horseshoe or rabbit's foot hidden on him somewhere, because he continues to amaze us.

Yesterday morning, the neurologist came by to run an EEG on Dad, saw him sitting up in bed and eating oatmeal and cancelled the test. Neurologically, there is nothing wrong with him. No stroke, knock on wood.

The surgeon came by and said he was going to do a chest tube on Dad instead of the horrible needle thingy, and after the fluid was drained that Dad would get some relief. Know how much bloody fluid they pumped out of his chest?

The equivalent of a 2-liter bottle of soda and maybe almost a 12-oz. soda can.

He immediately started breathing better and said to me, "I feel so much better now!" He perked right up, ate some fried chicken and potatoes, and then took a nap.

And his coma that he had on Tuesday? Apparently he had a hyperreaction to the Benedryl given to him before his blood transfusion. I think in 84 years he'd never had Benedryl, so he wouldn't have known. I know that I can take one and be so drowsy that I can barely function, two and I am in a coma. I teased the surgeon yesterday that the nurse must've given Dad enough to tranquilize an elephant and he just grinned.

Last night, they removed his oxygen mask (he still has one of those little tube-type oxygen things in his nose but this is a huge improvement), the blood pressure cuff that had been on his arm non-stop for days now, and told him that they were going to let him sleep.

My sister came creeping in around 1 AM this morning, leaving my brother and his wife at the hospital on the night shift. She said that she went to kiss Dad good night and he was sitting in bed wide awake. "I'm so excited," he said, "that I can't sleep."

His will to live and get better is so strong. Yesterday afternoon we parked my mom outside to waylay visitors and I crawled into the recliner in Dad's room to take a catnap. I leaned over to Dad and said, "Hey Dad, I'll make you a deal. I'll take a nap if you take a nap." Next thing I knew, I was watching him (he couldn't see me) and he was doing leg exercises in the bed trying to get his strength back instead of napping.

My sister's husband is a doctor, and was having lunch with some friends of his who are surgeons yesterday. They can't believe that Dad even survived the surgery, let alone all these complications.

I remain full of optimism, but I am trying to be realistic as well. Anything could happen. But I think he really wants to get better and come home. Chances are that he'll go to a rehab place first to get his strength back, because my mom can't do it all by herself and at this point I've been away from my family for almost two weeks and will need to go home soon. It's just so hard knowing what the right thing is to do, know what I mean?

Thanks for all of your continued prayers and thoughts for my dad. We're hoping that the drama is ending.

The longest day

Yesterday when we got to the hospital, Dad had begrudgenly eaten some oatmeal, had a protein drink, and was doing okay. His breathing was still rough but eventually the pulmonary specialist came in and said that his right lung was almost collapsed and that they would have to basically stick a huge needle in his back and get some of the fluid out. And, for the second time in two days, they mentioned the words that sent a chill down my spine:

Possible congestive heart failure.

But we wouldn't have an answer until they could draw the fluid out and see how responsive he was. So we waited around all day to see when the procedure would be done.

Just before lunchtime, Dad wanted to get up and use the toilet. It took two nurses and me to get him up and when he sat on the toilet he was so weak that he kept slumping to his right side. We got him up, put him upright in the chair, and fed him a little lunch which he was totally disinterested in. Finally, he drifted off to sleep.

And he slept in a coma-like state for the rest of the day. The nurses were so concerned that they called a neurologist to consult. Things did not look good.

I ended up calling one of my best friends who had been through this two years ago when his mom died. I'll save the advice for another time, but what he said was a comfort and I knew that it was time for me to put this in God's hands and stop being so selfish and wanting Dad to hang on because I wanted him to.

My sister and I ran out to get some takeout Italian since we couldn't bear to eat the pre-chewed cafeteria food yet another night and we had a glass of wine while we waited. We talked about Dad and how great of a life he's had.

We ate, and then I took Mom home. At 8:30, my sister called and said that Dad's blood pressure was dropping rapidly and we needed to get back to the hospital. We raced back, and found that his blood pressure was very low and we weren't sure if he was going to make it through the night.

Around 9:30, one of the aides came to get Dad for the CAT scan. Mom and I went along and as we sat in the hall, we were both so numb we couldn't even talk. He hadn't been awake for ten hours at this point, and there was no sign that he would ever wake up.

At 10:30, the aide brought Dad back up to the room and shut the door while he got Dad back in the bed. The three of us huddled outside, wondering what was going to happen next. We called our brothers and told them that they needed to come because the situation had become so grave.

The door opened.

My father was sitting up, eyes wide open, and waving at us.

It was like he'd just taken a little nap and nothing had happened.

Blood pressure was back to normal, all his vitals are great, all the bloodwork came back fine. The neurologist did give him some Heparin because they suspected a possible mini-stroke.

And my dad, awake for the first time in hours, ate a cup of ice cream and drank a can of ginger ale. And then watched Fox News.

I swear to God, it was the strangest and longest day of my life.

The three of us spent the night by his side. He would pop his eyes open and check to see if we were still there, ask for some juice, pat our hands. It was like nothing had ever happened.

The fluid-drawing will be tomorrow if things go well. I am hoping that it will. I don't really know what to expect at this point - I'm trying to stay optimistic, but realistic at the same time. He is 84 and has been through so much in the past 13 days that I don't know how much strength he has left.

I have put this in God's hands. I've been so very lucky to have had this time with him that I have cherished every moment, but I don't want him to suffer anymore. All I want is for him to be comfortable and at peace, no matter what the outcome is.

Please pray for us.

Baby steps

We had some good news yesterday. Dad got to eat some real food.

Food is a big deal in our family. And my Dad is the king of "when is our next meal". So to say that he was excited to get some real food is the understatement of the millenium.

I don't think chicken noodle soup or vanilla ice cream ever tasted so damn good. By the time I left yesterday, he had also eaten some cream of chicken soup, another bit of ice cream, and some chocolate pudding. Can you tell he has a sweet tooth?

The pneumonia is still kicking his ass, but the pulmonary specialist was there bright and early yesterday and ordered a CAT scan of his lungs and new breathing treatments. After one breathing treatment we noticed improvement, and he had his second one around 8:30 last night and my sister called and said he'd coughed up a ton of crap out of his lungs and was breathing much, much better. Thank God.

Blood pressure is still a little on the high side but better. Pulse still running too high at times. Intestines are back in working order.

I helped two of the nurses get Dad up to use the toilet yesterday and it took every ounce of strength I had to hold him up and not slump off the toilet. I know he was humiliated by the whole thing, because he's a very private person and I don't think I have ever seen him in just his underwear. Well, so far I've gotten the peep show quite often and he gets all embarrassed. Finally, the other day, I whispered to him, "Dad, I hate to break it to you like this, but yours is not the first penis I've ever seen..." Not sure if that helped, but it did provide a little humor. Not to mention I guess at 36 years old it was time for me to break that news to him.

Today, if he's doing better, I'm running home for a few days. I've got to get FMLA lined up with my office, need some clean clothes, and need to see Monkey Man. I can't tell you how much I've missed that kid. And of course, Joey. And even that stinky-ass dog, Rufus.

Twelve days. Twelve days.

I don't even know what day of the week it is

I discovered last night to my horror that apparently I started my new pack of Yasmin on Saturday. I am such a dumbass.

Sleep deprivation is a bad, bad thing. I don't know how my sister managed to pull so many nights at the hospital and still be coherent and cheer, because two nights of it and by yesterday afternoon I was a snarling wreck. I came home to Mom and Dad's and took a 45- minute nap yesterday morning but I'm having trouble turning my brain off for longer than that so as soon as I woke up, I showered and went back to the hospital. By 7:30 last night, I called my sister and we conferred that it is going to be necessary to hire private nursing care to do the night duty at the hospital - and to transition Dad home. So I put on my Boss Hat, called my mom, and as nicely as possible in my Wolfman state told her that we need to find a private nurse because my sister and I are just dying from exhaustion. Believe it or not, she actually agreed.

My parents are very proud and independent people. Neither of them will ever admit that they need help...maybe it's the years of living away from friends and family when Dad was in the military, or maybe it's the constitution you get from being from a large family (Mom is one of nine, Dad is one of eight). But this can create problems now, because as we've learned from this whole experience and Dad's blood thinner fiasco, someone really needs to be with them sometimes to manage things. They're not going to like it, but after this my sister and I both know that we're going to have to be a lot more aggressive about getting involved in things.

Last night around 8:30 I had settled in with The Cider House Rules (my second attempt to read it) and lo and behold my mother showed up at the hospital. She literally booted my ass out of there to come home and get some rest, so I came home to their house, poured myself a big glass of milk and had a few Benedryl, and collapsed into a coma. I'm still pretty groggy but at least I got a good solid eight hours of sleep.

We did find out yesterday that Dad has pneumonia in his lower right lobe of his lungs. They started breathing treatments with new medication and he was sleeping on his side so he could breathe better. It was almost painful to watch him wheezing away while he watched the news last night. Yet another reason that he really can't be left at night, and also because I kept track yesterday of how many times the nurses checked on him and it was one time in almost 5 hours. Pathetic. I had to raise total hell yesterday to get his breathing treatment done because the respiratory people were short-staffed and hadn't shown up for hours and hours. This is such a nightmare.

On the good side, he did get that nasal gastric tube out yesterday that had been pumping blood and crap out of his stomach, and he lost two IV's as well. Blood pressure is better and they are doing medication orally which gives them a lot more options for controlling it. A new issue is his blood sugar, which is running high due to the liquid nutrition they're pumping in - but insulin is helping control that. Geez.

I'm hoping that today he'll be feeling a little better as far as the pneumonia is concerned, and that we can find a nursing service to help out. Keep your fingers crossed.

Oh, and on a brighter note, it's Monday and that means that the Starbucks in the hospital lobby will be back in operation. Although it's rather pathetic that it will be the highlight of my day as far as I can see it. Maybe Alexia the nurse will be back today to tell me about her herd of 20 goats.

Scared

I don't even know where to start.

Yesterday, Dad started running a fever so apparently he has some sort of infection of unknown origin. They ran urine and blood cultures - urine came back with a little bacteria in there but the blood cultures won't be ready until tonight at the absolute earliest. They gave him a dose of some high-powered antibiotics and are waiting for the results to do further treatment.

He slept yesterday from about 5 - 8 PM - a good, sound sleep. He was much more peaceful than he'd been all day and when he woke up he was a lucid as can be. We sat up and watched the NASCAR race at Bristol for about two hours which is really something considering he doesn't even really like NASCAR. Then around 10 we called it a night. The nurses came in and out all night long doing breathing treatments, giving medication, etc.

Around 4 AM is when things started getting hairy. I had woken up to use the bathroom and as I watched Dad sleeping I noticed that he was wheezing - NOT a good sign. I went out to the nurse's station and got his nurse to come check on him, and in about 30 minutes the cardiology PA showed up and said she'd order a chest x-ray to make sure he doesn't have pneumonia. He got another breathing treatment in the meantime and the wheezing had stopped.

I rode down with him to x-ray and he slept most of the way. The man is exhausted - between the fever, the ongoing blood pressure issues, no food (except IV nutrition), the staff waking him up almost every hour on the hour, he has got to be worn slam out. We are now on Day 10 of this whole shitfest and I can't help but wonder how much more he can take. We're hoping to hear about the x-ray sometime today but with it being a weekend, who knows when it will happen.

I'm at my parents' house now to "nap" (ha ha ha - I don't think I can turn my brain off long enough to nap) and shower and then it's back to the hospital for the night.

I am scared, scared, scared. And I don't think I can cry anymore.

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.

On the road again

Tomorrow after lunch I will be heading back to my hometown to be with my dad. To say that I'm dreading the drive is an understatement. Really, it's only 2.5 hours from our house, but it feels like driving straight to the end of the universe. I would say there's a good 1.5 hour stretch of the trip with no stops - no gas stations, no little stores, nowhere to go grab a drink or get a bathroom break. I don't know what it is about going on a road trip where there's plenty of restrooms on the route and you don't have to go for like 3 days, or when you have a 20-minute stretch of road with no restrooms and you are practically dying when you finally get to the next restroom. What's that all about?

My parents actually live outside of a good-sized town. It used to be that there were only a few restaurants to eat at, no well-known chains and nowhere you could go for a nice "fancy" dinner. Now the place has been overtaken by chains like Applebee's, Lone Star, and Outback. I still prefer to go to the little local places instead, though, like the little chain of restaurants I worked for back in 1990. It's a really odd concept - they specialize in biscuits. Big, fluffy, buttermilk biscuits. And lots of other stuff to go with them like bacon, ham, sausage, eggs, and all sorts of other American Heart Association-approved foods. Not to mention the best iced tea you will ever drink. The other odd part of the puzzle is that they are only open from 6 AM until 2 PM every day...I guess they discovered that the biscuit market seriously dries up after lunchtime so it made no sense to stay open after 2 PM. I would argue with that, as I found last week that I was really craving a good ham biscuit around 4 PM to take the edge off my hunger. Not to mention, what if you have the munchies? Biscuits, mmmmm.

It's kind of funny - when I left there in 1991, I always thought I'd be back. Over the next few years, I found that I never really missed it other than missing my parents. Considering that I only spent one year of high school there and then two years working and going to night school (a long story for another time), it's probably not that surprising that I didn't feel a connection there. Now, 15 years later, I find myself reacquainting myself with the streets and the culture of the town and seeing people that I haven't seen forever. It's been nice. Nicer than I thought it would be. And I find myself kind of longing for that small-town atmosphere, and for my extended family.

My dad had a better day today. Physical therapy came and got him up and walking, but still no food or liquids and we're hoping he'll get some this weekend. He also was getting a blood transfusion today to help stabilize him a little more. I talked to him on the phone twice and he mentioned both times that he's sick of being there and ready to bust out. So maybe the fact that he's too weak isn't necessarily a bad thing, otherwise he would be breaking out of the hospital like he did 20 years ago after his leg operation. Yeah, he's kind of crazy that way.

So...I may be posting pretty sporadically this weekend due to hospital duty, but I'm hoping to come back with my dad in better shape and with more madness next week....

The good, the bad, and the ugly

Apparently Dad didn't have a great day today. At least that's the impression that I got from my sister, who had very limited opportunities to talk to me today. When he was moved into Cardiac from ICU, his IV's got screwed up yet again and they never re-hooked his pain meds, so he went all night pushing the goddamn button only to have it not working. The morning shift got him straightened back out, but by that point he was exhausted and not breathing as well today. I'm petrified that he's going to get pneumonia just to add one more problem to the list.

The state of the nursing care at the hospital is causing us major stress. I hate feeling so out of control over the whole situation. I've always been the feisty one in the family - the one who isn't afraid to make a stink when things aren't going right, who isn't afraid to stand up for what's right. And dammit, it's so frustrating to have this shit happening over and over again. And being up here gives me no control whatsoever.

My sister has been down there spending nights at the hospital and dealing with our mother which would make even Job scream for mercy, and here I am at home trying to cram 5 days of work into 2 days and trying to get things at home straightened out while I feel like I need to be down there with my dad. Joey did a great job keeping things running while I was gone, but he has a very demanding job and a lot of people that depend on him for their jobs - so he has been really stressed out too and trying so very hard to be understanding and caring. He keeps telling me to go back to my dad, but I know deep in my heart that he's not really aware that this isn't going to be a temporary thing. This could drag on for months and months. How patient will he be when I keep having to leave?

My job is another situation altogether. I was assigned to yet another project today and I'm about at the breaking point, and I forsee some personnel changes that might be coming down the pike and it makes me scared of losing my job. I am debating asking about FMLA so that I can deal with my dad's situation without fear of losing my job. On the other hand, I've been here for 10 years and shouldn't have to fear for my job either....

Normally I'm able to be the optimist in this house. So maybe I should try to think of all the good things that have happened this week:

*The rash is gone. All it took was a shot in the ass and a round of steroids. And, sweet irony, Eeyore's rash is gone too. No shot or steroids necessary.
*I am teaching Monkey Man how to play dominos. I am hoping this may be a useful skill someday when he's in a nursing home or something.
*The Starbucks in the hospital lobby finally opened on Monday. The drink they fixed me was atrocious, but I swear that just holding the little paper cup made my blood pressure drop significantly.
*I irritated my mother by refusing to try a piece of fatback. I found that highly satisfying for obvious reasons.
*I discovered that my sister and I share some of the same food quirks, which is really odd considering she was grown and out of the house when I was born. Tell me that's not weird as shit.
*I lost four pounds. I'm calling it The Hospital Food Diet, look for the book this fall in your local bookstore.

There, I feel better now. And to those who have commented about taking care of myself, that is one thing that my mom, sister and I have been doing - we all made sure that we ate good meals and got some exercise every day. Sleep is another issue, but we can get some of that later. I'm thinking that next time I go back I will bring some kind of memory foam mattress topper to sleep on at my parents' house instead of the bed of nails I slept on last week. My ass is still hurting from that stupid bed, which of course my mother claims is the best bed ever. I guess it is if you like feeling like you've been bludgeoned with a baseball bat.

The comforts of home

My wonderful bed, which is waiting for me.

My psycho dog, who I think actually missed me.

The arms of my husband who hugged me like he was never going to let go.

The smile on Monkey Man's face when I showed up at school to pick him up.

Damn, it's good to be home.

On the Builder Daddy front, he had a good day today. They had him sitting up in the chair when I got to ICU at 10 AM, and when we got back for the 1:30 visit he was still in there. The nurse said that every time she went in there to get him back in the bed, he shooed her away and said he wanted to sit up longer. I think he slept most of the time he was in the chair, but I felt like that was huge progress.

His vitals were better today - blood pressure jumped a little when they finally got him back in the bed, but I think he had probably overdone things a bit and that caused the problems. He was far more coherent and aware of our presence and scolded us for not coming earlier (despite the fact that ICU only lets you in during certain short time spans during the day).

I wept when I left today. I know I'll be back down there on Friday, but the fact that I almost lost him made it so hard to walk out that door. He's been telling me for the past two days that I needed to get back home to take care of my family and go to work, and I've told him every time that my job for now is to take care of him.

I came home from dinner to find a message from my sister that he is out of ICU and was moved back to the Cardiac unit that we had such good care with. As a matter of fact, when we left the hospital this afternoon we ran into Connie, his day nurse in Cardiac and she got back off of the elevator to ask us about how Dad was doing and what the surgeon found. She was a really sweet lady.

Tonight, I'm going to tuck my Monkey Man in, and crawl into bed knowing that I am home safe and that my dad is in good hands tonight. That's a great feeling.

Gotta hand it to him, the man's got some spunk

Sorry for not posting an update on Builder Daddy yesterday, but between running back and forth to the hospital for the weird-ass visiting hours in ICU in the heat, dealing with The Queen of Denial (a.k.a. my mother), and then escaping to my cousin Laura's house for a few hours, I was bone-ass tired when I got back here to my parents' house last night.

And I'm still exhausted. Barely slept any last night and I know I have a drive back home today to deal with so I am dreading it like you don't even know. Right now the plan is to run home for a few days and then come back on Friday for a few days...but of course, that could change.

My dad is doing well considering all he went through. He is still in ICU, but if they can get his blood pressure under control they will probably move him back to the Cardiac unit either today or tomorrow. He was still pretty out of it yesterday, but they did get him sitting up in a chair and he did talk a little bit.

Believe it or not, he told Mom not to cancel a trip they are taking in October. The man is a nut! She cancelled it anyway, but he is hell-bound and determined not to let this slow him down. I love that attitude.

Anyhow, I'll post again tonight. I have so much to write about right now, but no brain cells to do it with.

And...if I can just add this - from personal experience this week, if you have parents that take any kind of medication, make sure that you and they have a complete list of these meds for all doctor's visits as well as in case they go to the ER. Even though both of my parents had these, they never were asked for them by the hospital and I believe in my gut that if they'd known about Dad's heart meds, we could have avoided a lot of heartache. I can tell you now that the medical care of my parents has forever changed, because my sister and I are going to be watching them like a bunch of pit bulls.

Later, y'all. Off to shower and hopefully wake up.

Today made me believe in miracles

When my mother and I arrived at the hospital this morning, we already knew from my sister (who had spent the night at the hospital with Dad) that he had been moved to a new room - in the Cardiac Care Unit. I felt pretty optimistic at the time that it was a sign that they were getting things under control...until I saw my sister's face. I whisked her away to one of the umpteen lounges on the floor and she laid it all out on the table for me.

It was going to take a miracle for our father to survive.

Without going into a lot of detail - because this may get ugly before it's all said and done - there was such gross mishandling of Dad's case on the floor he'd previously been on that by the time they got him to Cardiac he was a mess. The staff in Cardiac was so upset about what had been done that they filed a grievance against the other floor. Yeah, it was that bad.

But you know how sometimes a person walks into your life and without you even knowing it saves your ass? Well, there was this great nurse assigned to Dad in Cardiac last night that spent a ton of one-on-one time with him getting everything straightened out - meds adjusted, doctors consulted, all that good stuff. I only got to talk to him for a brief second since his shift was ending, but I gave him a huge hug and thanked him for what he'd done for Dad. At the time, I felt like it probably wasn't enough to save his life, but that he had given enough of a damn to fix all the fuckups that the other jerks had done and for that I will be eternally grateful.

Thanks to the nurse's hard work, Dad's blood thinner level was in "normal" range at last, his heart rate had stabilized, and we were given the go-ahead for surgery. They wheeled him down to the OR, allowing my mom, sister and me to come along and sit with him in the pre-op area until they took him in. It was freezing cold in there, Dad was fading in and out of sleep (or maybe consciousness), and the three of us were lined up on rolling chairs watching the anesthetist's assistant work up Dad's IV's and stuff. The guy was funny as hell - a dry sense of humor, he kept me giggling the whole time. And when he turned his back to us to look at some charts, we noticed it...

His scrubs were hanging halfway down his ass, showing his boxers.

My sister started to giggle. My mother started to giggle. I was practically wetting my pants. And finally my mom looked over at me and said, "Well, at least his underwear is coordinated to his scrubs." We all just cracked up.

We all gave Dad a last squeeze and he was on his merry way. We expected him to be in the OR for at least three hours or longer, so we decided to run out and get some lunch since it was 1:30.

At 3:00, we arrived back in the waiting area to discover that the nurse had come looking for us.

They were done. And they had finished quickly, which could mean one of two things - either there was nothing that could be done for Dad, or they were able to fix it quickly. Finally, the surgeon came out.

"Your dad is a lucky man," he said, "We discovered that it was simply that his intestines had looped over each other, so we straightened them out and sewed him right back up."

No serious blockage.
No scar tissue.
No cancer.

I am telling you, he is one lucky guy. And he seems to be doing well - he'll be in ICU for a few days and then hopefully shipped back to the Cardiac unit where they took such great care of him. He's still having a few heart issues, but I think they're monitoring it very closely right now so I can sleep tonight knowing they're doing all they can do.

Tonight after Mom went to bed, my sister and I sat in our living room so exhausted that we could barely even see straight. We got to talking about Dad and all the crazy things he's done over the years and started laughing so hard that both of us were crying.

My dad is an incredible guy. And I'm not a super religious person, but I do believe that someone, or something, saved his life today. And that makes me doubly lucky.

Thanks to everyone for all the e-mails, phone calls, thoughts and prayers. I can't help but think that the outpouring of love my family has received did a lot for making this miracle happen.

The road to hell is paved with blood thinner

Today was a day filled with frustration. So much frustration that I don't even know where to start.

First of all, my parents live in a pretty good-sized town with one hospital. And all I can say is that from what we've experienced, the care here is somewhat akin to being trapped in a third-world country.

It's not that the staff is incompetent or mean or rude - it's that they're so short-staffed that it's almost impossible to even get something when you're in desperate need. Take for example, 1 PM today - my dad's suction tube was stopped up for the umpteenth time and needed to be cleaned out, and the buildup of fluids in his abdomen was growing at such an alarming rate that he began to gag over and over.

I buzzed the nurse and explained the problem. Forty-five minutes later she finally came in - AFTER I went and chased her down.

It was that kind of day. Add to that growing list of frustrations that even after Vitamin K and two units of plasma were ordered at 7 AM, they didn't show up until almost 5 PM.

Dad seems better today in some ways. We had a few scary hours where his heart rate went way up, and after discussing it with the nurse we discovered that apparently no one took his prescription med history so he hasn't had any of his heart medication since Wednesday - duh, no wonder! But we got it back down with the help of some oxygen and a bag of ice strategically placed on his head. Believe me, he was one foxy dude with that big old ziploc on his head.

His blood levels still aren't right - the surgeon told us that for the small amount of blood thinner he'd been taking, the level still in his blood four days later is highly alarming. So until that's stabilized, we're in a never-ending cycle of hell.

On the good side, he still has his sense of humor. His roommate is this old guy who is in really bad health and delirious most of the time. Last night, he kept Dad and my sister up all night by yelling "shit!" over and over again, trying to get out of the bed, and all sorts of other shenanigans. My dad turned to my sister and said, "I think he's just trying to get me back since they woke him up last night moving me in the room!" So I think with his attitude, that will be 80% of the battle back from this.

So, I'm off to bed. Still in limbo. Hoping for answers tomorrow. Missing the hell out of my family, including Monkey Man who told me today, "I know that Daddy and I are having way more fun than you're having!"

I hope so, buddy. I hope so.

In tomorrow's hospital vent: The f*cked up cafeteria hours and why the hell can't you get a decent cup of coffee after 6 PM?