High Stress Season

It's been awhile since I updated my blogger and I'm feeling a little guilty. Truth be told I've had quite a season. During Thanksgiving we got the news that my father wasn't quite up to par. I knew recently that he had been getting fatigued easily. I just chalked it up to his getting older, smoking, diabetes and high blood pressure. Even my parents trips to Florida have become less frequent and more tiresome for him. A couple of weeks before Thanksgiving I was given the vague information that he had kidney stones and was going through some testing for possible heart problems. I also found out my sister, Cherilyn, and my mother that he had been dodging the doctor. Thanksgiving at Rick and Donna's was fairly quiet - which was fine with me since work had been beasting the hell out of me with a multitude of projects - and the outings were short lived when my father either opted out or just wanted to sit and wait.

Around Christmas it was firm that he needed to have some procedures for kidney stones and an aneurysm in his aorta. Cherilyn had worked doggedly to get him to see a specialist and after some run ins with insurance he was set to have an angioplasty, but his previous surgeries had made complications.

After New Year's we learned his procedure had escalated to major surgery. He was scheduled to have a triple bypass. We drove to SC and be with him and help out as much as we could. Leaving the house at 5am we took him to Trident Medical where he was prepped and we stayed until the surgery was completed. Everything went smoothly and we were eager to see him.

I wasn't ready to see my father the way we did. Tubes running all through his throat, chest, legs and a ventilator with equipment everywhere emotions ran high. The girls all cried and all Rick and I could do was stand there firm. It's not a good thing to see your father like that. His eyes were barely open, but were glazed over. He tried mumbling something but couldn't because of the ventilator. This was a man who worked hard, had a hard life growing up and given up everything for his siblings and raising his own family. He was always a very giving person who no matter what always to tried to please. It's where I like to think I got the trait from.

To see him like that was awful. The next few days were baby steps in his recovery. Lots of family and friends called constantly, stopped by the house, or drove by the hospital. Most were turned away from visits aas the last thing he needed was to lose focus on his recovery. Eventually many of the tubes were taken out as he tried to reboot his system and get things going normally. By the time we drove back to Florida late Sunday he was transferred to PCU and trying to eat more, get his oxygen levels back up and moving around more.

I call everyday every few hours to talk to him and offer encouragement. He's had some rough nights as the staff tried to wean him off of his oxygen tubes or switching out his meds for his diabetes. Stillup and down, but everyday offers an improvement. Hopefully by tomorrow he may even be able to go home. Between Ricky, Rachel and I we've decided to alternate going home to help care for him so Cherilyn an my mom can have some rest themselves.

I brought over some equipment from Florida so while I wasn't at the hospital we could do some much needed maintenance. Rick and I managed to do some work on the cars - checking fluids, changing oil, cleaning and such. Eleanor was also a huge help with not only the work on the house, but with my father's pre- and post-op. I think it was reassuring that she was there to lend her nursing advice for a faster recovery. Because we wanted the house to be clean for his return home and ease some stress from my mother's shoulders we were able to dust, move furniture and vacuum everything, steam the entire house , clean out ducts and windows and basically manage the day to day chores. Rick and I even managed to reorganize the house so he could move around and get to bed easily. Aspen was given a new kennel so he wouldn't be all over the house to make a mess. It was alot of work, but definitely worth it. In between some minor sibling squabbling it was a good bonding experience. None of us had had much time to be together with our own lives in focus. The whole thing made me reanalyze my priorities.

I wish for a speedy recovery for my father as we aren't out of the woods yet. After a few weeks healing he'll haev to go back to deal with those pesky kidney stones and (!) the aneurysm.