Family . . .

My dad is in the hospital tonight. He went in for a check up about 2 or 3 weeks post knee surgery. He's been in pretty significant pain since well before the surgery, but it's not healing as quickly as he'd hoped. He dropped Mom and his cousin Mary off at Walmart and drove over to the hospital. The plan was that the ladies would fill their carts and finish their shopping in time for Dad to pick them up at the door. Great plan, eh? Unless they find a blood clot and choose instead to admit him immediately, and NO he is not able to just go pick them up first! Mom doesn't have a cell phone, and Mary's new one didn't have service, or wasn't on, or she just didn't hear it! (A whole other topic- people who have cells but never answer them! Or leave them at home or in the car, etc!)

Somehow it came to pass that one of the NURSES would go over to Walmart and pick them up. She'd never met them and they didn't know she was coming instead of Dad, but it seemed to work out. They were paged to the customer service desk and promptly left carts FULL of stuff to meet this stranger at the door. She pulls up and looks at them and from the details my dad has given recognizes them and says their names. They get in her car and she brings them back to the hospital. Two thoughts: either she was just really nice, or they were worried about Dad enough that they could spare a nurse to get them there quickly. Not sure which, but I hope it "just worked out" that way.

I'm going to pick up my mom in the morning and head over. It's a great thing that they caught it when they did. It's apparently in the main artery in his leg and if it had broken loose has a quick, direct route to his heart. Not good at all. He thinks that he might even get out tomorrow, if he can learn to give himself shots twice a day. I think it may take more than one day to get him comfortable with that. He would then get his blood checked regularly and would switch to pills for maintenance when it's at the desired level. Can I just say what a nightmare it would be if something happened to him? A fierce battle would ensue to prevent a certain family member from draining my mom dry- and it would not be pretty! Mom is hardly partial or capable of being partial where her granddaughters are involved. (Sigh) Can I just pray that when they go they go together? Now, hopefully not for many years, as they are only 58 and 59, but both smoke more than a forest fire(a chimney didn't seem appropriate!). But then that would bring about a whole other battle! But enough about my family's dirty secrets!

Good news of the day: I got my contract renewal for next year today!

Other bummer news: Looks like my trip to England in June may not happen. It looks like it simply isn't going to work out with finances and time on both sides of the ocean!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone!

Amanda