Recently in The Parental Units Category

I visited with my father at the Hospital yesterday. Turns out it is an obstructed bowel, which then caused a mild heart attack. My father is resting, though not easily, since his back precludes his ability to lay still in one position for more than a few minutes. Of course, this than sets of the alarm that he has stopped breathing. He is still breathing, it is just that the sensors on his body are not all that good. Anyway, that brings in the nurse, who chastise him, and force him onto his back. Then, a few minutes later, he moves again, and the whole process starts again.

Yep, that's my parental unit dad. Got's to love him.

The doctor initially felt confident that surgery could be avoided, which would be good, because his heart is not up the stress and strain. I was going to visit again today, but I was not moving too fast. Mom sent an email out earlier tonight, and I learned that he has two obstructions. He is going to have surgery tomorrow.

It is Friday, which is the start of my 3 day weekend, and so I tend to take it easy. I sleep in, lounge about when I do get up, enjoying a fire, reading a book, and posting some entries on the ol' blog. I also ignore my phone, which today was easy to do since I left it on vibrate mode from yesterday. I have to have the ringer turned off for groups. It wouldn't look good for the counselor's phone to be interrupting an emotionally sensitive disclosure by one of my clients.

Anyway, around 9:00 PM I hear my phone vibrating away in the pocket of my jacket. It's The GirlFriend™, just checking in from work. After hanging up, I notice I missed a call and a voice message. Thinking it is probably just a message from The GirlFriend™, I check my voice mail.

It wasn't from The GirlFriend™, it was from my mother. She states they are air lifting my father to North Memorial Hospital. He has gotten worse since yesterday.

Now, I did not know dad was sick. No one called to tell me he was having problems. So, imagine the shock of discovering my father is so sick they have to air lift him to a hospital in Robbinsdale, Minnesota. Yes, at this point I am starting to freak, a combination of fearing the loss of my father, and the shame of having not heard mom's message until 8 hours after she called.