Smile

Last week my sister and I drove my father over to Denver for a somewhat “routine” procedure. After having his gall bladder removed (as well as a few stones) in January, he started having more problems. They detected more stones, hiding in a duct next to his liver, that had “calcified”, making them impossible to pass on his own.

We arrived at the appropriate time, never meeting the anesthesiologist or the surgeon that would be preforming the surgery. All seemed to go well. They removed the stones and made a surgical incision so that he could pass future stones. They didn’t want to keep him over night for observation, so they let him go. Again, we never met the surgeon as he had to run off for an “emergency”. We got back to the hotel room. Everything seemed fine. Then at 12:06 in the am my father began to pass massive amounts of blood. We called an ambulance. As he laid on the motel bed in a cold sweat mumbling, my sister couldn’t find a pulse. He became unresponsive. Then we watched, helpless as he turned gray then white.

We sat in the emergency room while he began to vomit blood. I screamed for them to call the surgeon who performed the surgery, as they couldn’t find the source of the bleeding. They said he wasn’t “available”. I told them even God was more “available”, then I screamed some profanities and told them to call the bastard. He never showed up. Just another doctor who thinks of himself as God.

He made it through the night, then they transfered him to another hospital. Did another procedure to see if they could stop the bleeding. Slowly he stabilized. Finally after almost a week we were able to bring him home.

For the first time, I was trying to imagine my life without my father in it.
I can’t.

He’s doing much better now, thank God (I mean the real one and not the surgeon).

Also….. after 3 weeks, my cat PONCHO came home!!!! He was looking pretty skinny, but otherwise in pretty good shape.

I’m feeling pretty lucky right now.