Mood: ‘Fire and Rain’, James Taylor
Oh, Life…
Sometimes life turns on a dime. Sometimes for good, sometimes for bad. Sometimes what seems like the worst turns out to be the best. Almost all of us take such things for granted and are surprised or stunned when those rough patches come along.
The last two weeks have been a little rough for my family.My parents are 85 this year, and I am grateful they are still around, of course. I am well aware that the days ahead are many less than those behind and though I do not like to dwell upon it, they will not be around for a great deal more time, perhaps a decade if we remain fortunate.
However, the last several months has seen some increasing medical issues with my father. UTIs and bladder void acne issues that have kept him cathetered for most of the last four months. In the last two weeks he has gotten weaker and as of a week ago he had complained of stomach pains and feeling nauseous, even to the point of vomiting a few times. For several days he had not eaten much, not wanting the stomach pains to worsen or to just expel it all out again.
About 5 days ago, as of this writing, his catheter was leaking and he was in no condition to go to the urologist so we called in an EMT. The upswing of this was that it was best to get him to the ER to have them hopefully change the catheter and see what was going on with him. It was extremely fortunate that we did, in several ways!
Is Timing Everything of Just Some Goddamn Good Fortune?
A CT scan revealed that he had a hernia through which some intestine, enough to cut off the natural flow of waste, and a larger portion of his bladder had invaded, the size of the hernia small enough to cut off all or enough flow. His stomach pains were caused by the backing up of the waste in his digestive system and the portion of his bladder would seem to be the cause of his UTI issues and what he couldn’t fully drain the bladder, keeping him cathetered for so long a time.
What was truly amazing and greatly fortunate was that the hospital’s hernia specialist surgeon was on site performing an operation and able to work on my father next! It was worth it to make certain he made it through the surgery alright, and in fact the surgery went off perfectly, both intestine and bladder were still healthy after being ‘put back in place’, but I was up at 4:30am Tuesday morning to go to work and did not get to sleep until 2:30 the following morning.
There may be a follow-up to this post, as the last few days, though positive, have been hard, seeing someone who I have known as strong all my life reduced into a sick and hurting man. Still, as things are at this moment in time, he is on the mend and doing well.
I am grateful and though full of the understanding he very well may not be with up too many more years, I will not take for granted any of those days or years.
Tell those people, friends, lovers, husbands, wives, sister, brothers, relatives that you love them.
