- I spent the week after my birthday running around to get all my pre-surgery medical checkups done while getting all my work caught up before my time off, I had also lined up a job interview which included a test on the same day I had one of my appointments, a 3-hour exam where I saw no fewer than four different medical providers, got an EKG, had my phlebotomy draw botched briefly (ow!) and had...ahem, an annual. Yikes.
- That following weekend, early Saturday, my computer goes down completely. The logic board again, the fourth time for me in the history of being an iBook owner. So, I can't get caught up and my machine is in the shop until...Wednesday afternoon, following. I get it back and work like a madman, having spent part of the earlier week trying to recover enough databases to access the phone numbers of all the students I'm working with.
- After three days of frantic catch-up, Elly and I go camping along the Appalachian Trail, as we had planned to do for a month. It was lovely and relaxing and a really good thing, although I was plagued a bit by anxiety about not having enough work done. Elly and I compromise and we spend that Monday, Memorial Day, at her family's house (which has wireless) so I can do a little work, but I have no cell phone access out there. We get back to Elly's house late and I don't check my voicemail since I thought it was a message a friend had left earlier.
- Tuesday morning, the 30th, I check my messages - there's one from my mom. My dad's in the hospital. She's asleep but I call, he's in Intensive Care with severe internal bleeding. I get the number of the hospital and call. He's not doing well, he's not stable, he's had 6 units of blood and there are no signs of stopping, he's going to be air-lifted to a hospital in Modesto. I get the Doctor on the phone and he says it doesn't look good. I'm at work, try to get some things done, realize I need to book a flight that night. I consult my co-workers who all encourage me to go. I try to work because the flight's not until 9pm that night, but it's really difficult, and I'm calling the hospital and getting calls from my dad's siblings, my very tired and stressed-out mom, and in between i'm pretty well freaking out and trying to line up a car to borrow for the drive from Oakland to Modesto. Eventually I leave work and pack. Elly takes work off to drive me to Dulles and I cry and freak out all the way there. As a totally freak coincidence, I meet a long-lost friend who happens to be on the same flight, coming home from his uncle's funeral, and our seats are right next to each other so we're able to switch seats and catch up all the way out. Cathy Rion, bless her heart, picks me up with chocolate baked goods and offers to come with me up to the hospital and hang out with me in Modesto as long as possible. When I arrive that night I have a voicemail from mom: the bleeding has stopped, the operation in Sonora worked (they'd cauterized what was apparently a bleeding ulcer) and although we don't say as much, it becomes clear that he's going to live. It's midnight in Oakland and we begin the two hour drive to a Days Inn Modesto.
- Day one, we stay at the Days Inn with my mom. The next day Mazzy takes off work and comes up to spend the next day and a half with us, and it's like the most surreal forced vacation I've ever been on. Two of my dad's sisters, my aunts Ellen and Rosemary, have made the trip and we meet them at the hospital. He's in OK shape and on pain meds, but most of the pain is for a wound on his foot, not the internal stuff. The bleeding doesn't start again, we visit again in the evening.
- That weekend I drive Cathy to a church retreat in Livermore and she offers for me to keep the car (I take her up on it). It's unclear whether he'll be released, it seems possible at any moment, but conflicting informaiton keeps coming from the hospital. On Sunday they decide to operate on his foot, which has been causing him the most pain. This means he won't get out of the hospital before Monday, when I get on a flight back to DC. I drive mom back to Sonora, and it's odd, I had though we were just going to pick some things up but she wants to stay. We get in a weird fight late that night, and I leave the next day to visit dad again in the hospital beofre I take off. When I get there, he's in the surgery for his foot (bad information about the timing) but I get lunch and come back, and he's there. We're able to use my cell phone to have him talk to mom, but then I have to head back to Oakland.
- Monday I spend the day on a plane back to DC which arrives at 9pm and Elly picks me up. Also, I find out that I didn't get the job I had interviewed for during the previous week. Tuesday I come into work for one day of our three-day International Intern retreat, I've done nothing to help with it and feel pretty crappy about that. My dad still hasn't been released from the hospital. I get a little bit caught up, spend time with our interns before they go (I know almost all of them and want to see them off). That night Molly comes into town, and the next day, it's off to surgery.
- The Big Day: I show up at the strip-mall o' plastic surgery in my jammies Tullamore, MD in Molly's car with Elly in tow. They've sped it up a bit, so I'm a little rushed but happy to have it over with more quickly. I meet with the anesthesiologist who assures me she'll give me anti-nausea meds during the session (I barfed once during my first surgery, morphine is no friend of mine), Elly and I get educated about drains, and things are a little tense with Elly (she's nervous) but otherwise OK. I pop an anti-nausea pill (this will be ironic later) and get ready to go under. They're all very nice. I'm out shortly, the only thing I remember is the transfer from the operating table to the guerney, they asked me to move my legs, and I remember trying but not being able to. I come to in the recovery room with Elly and Molly saying nice things that I can't recall at all. I feel nausea and...I barf. I'm woozy but OK, they walk me out to the car and on the way home...I barf. I get back to Elly's apartment, fall asleep, and wake up to...barf. A lot. I'm also not supposed to eat or drink anything again after midnight on the off chance they'd have to re-admit me upon my exam the next day. So I'm dehydrated like whoa and totally out of it. The only thing I can taste is the morphine weirdness working its way out of my system.
- The Day After: Elly, Molly and I get up at 6:30am to beat rush-hour back for an early-morning exam. I come in, the nurse takes a look under the binder for five minutes, the surgeon tells me how excited she is to see the result (so am I!) and off I go, tired but far less nauseous. We start out cautiously but I'm really hungry and still pretty dehydrated. Eventually we settle on a breakfast option and head back to DC. I'm still in my jammies and self-conscious. As I sit here, I can't for the life of me tell you where we went, but I do remember the process of shuffling around the retirees in Tullemore at the adjoining strip mall and thinking, hey, I'd rather be in DC in my jammies than here. I think I slept for most of the day thereafter, but then I walked around some as well. You'll have to Ask Elly and Molly if it's all that important. My dad finally gets out of the hospital, I hear from my mom. Things are still tense, and most of my information from my uncle Frank who text-messages me.
- After a lovely three days in her company, Molly takes off Friday night. Sometime in there we go to see the DaVinci Code because I think that two and a half hours in an air-conditioned theater with something brainless to watch will do me good. It does indeed. I think that means I slept all the next day. My mom gets a statement for the air-lift to Modesto: $12,000. We still don't know how much Medi-Care will cover, we can only hope. I can't really sleep until I take one of the sleeping pills the doctor prescribed to me. My co-workers drop by and give me a baggie of vegan baked goods, which is very sweet.
- Saturday is my dad's birthday, I call and hear from him. He's OK, set up in the living room in a rented hospital bed, because with his foot surgery he's unable to put any weight on his feet. Mom is freaked out because she can't lift him by herself and the equipment isn't set up how it would need to be for her to support him properly. It's also clear he's not on the right combo of medications, and apparently the dialysis center he goes to decided on that weekend to re-pave the parking lot so it's a struggle to get him in and out of the center. I feel powerless to do anything from here but listen. It's also Pride Weekend in DC, so Elly and I make an attempt to watch the parade. I'm up and walking, but I wear out really quickly.
- Sunday I get the call: my dad's back in Intensive Care in Sonora, and they're bringing him back down to Modesto. The internal bleeding began again. In a way I'm relieved because I was worried my mom would get injured trying to lift him, and then who would take care of either of them? But my mom is concerned about him being in Modesto. Apparently this is a much slower bleed than the previous ones, but still a concern. Things move much slower this time, it takes several days to locate teh bleed, and they still (to this post) haven't fixed it...they just keep giving him units of blood. They're going to deal with it surgically, not through cauterization this time.
- The next week is lots of sleeping. I mean, lots. The highlights included calling the hospital frequently, going to a book reading by my friends Dan and Andy, going for a dental cleaning, and twenty-four hours of the most aggregious food poisoning I've ever had, thanks to some late-night Whole Foods hot-bar food. Lots more barfing. I had also thought I would get my drains out (it's kind of awkward to have tubes coming out of my body attached to little baggies of blood), but no dice. The doctor says keep 'em in. I'm hoping for early this week. I get some reading done, mostly for a gig next week. I try to check email but don't have the attention span to work in earnest. I get tired really easily.
- Yesterday, I get a call from my co-worker who asks how things are going and winds up the call with, "So, when were you planning on leaving the job?" Mind you, my term's not officially up until the end of October and I didn't get the one job I'd had a chance to apply for. I haven't exactly been shopping the market lately. I will be, as soon as I'm back up to speed. We worked it out, but it wasn't exactly what I'd been looking for in a re-introductory conversation. Today I hear that apparently, despite the slow bleed, my dad's in good shape and watching parts of the World Cup.
Anyhow, I start work again Monday, drains and all; my dad was supposed to have surgery yesterday but for some reason the surgeon has decided to re-evaluate him and is generally dragging his feet, and I spent all day working on catch-up. Later that night I got a call from a friend that another mutual friend attempted suicide (luckily, not successfully).
That is all for now. It's an ear/eyeful.
