i seem to be back

first off… thank you for all the well wishes… it’s been a crappy week, and it was nice to know that people were thinking of me.

i’ve been on call for jury duty all week. lucky for me, it seems that santa clara county just wanted to have me call them 3 times a day for the whole week. as of right now, i have to call one more time and i’m free for 4 more years or so.

in some ways, it was nice to have jury duty this week. it really grounded me. i couldn’t get too out of it, because in 4 hours or so, i had to call again and see if i had to go to court. it ensured that i took showers, and got cleaned up in the morning. that was a good thing.

my dad was admitted to kaiser walnut creek on saturday night with a minor ischemic stroke. it probably came about because he isn’t taking care of his diabetes or his high blood pressure.

kaiser didn’t see any progressing symptoms and sent his butt home. they didn’t tell him to stop taking medications that he already had… and by sunday morning, he was seeing double. we think the cause of the “progression” was the high blood pressure medication. kaiser finally admitted him during the super bowl. it was decided that mar and sporty spice were going to go (seems sporty spice didn’t want to go to the party they were invited too). let me tell you, staying at my super bowl party was a horrible mistake. i know there was nothing i could do at the hospital, but i felt so guilty for not going.

monday morning, i waited for the call that said i didn’t need to go to jury duty, and the rocker and i went up to walnut creek. see, normally i can do these things by myself, but monday, i was still feeling the guilt of not going up on sunday. so, the rocker went for moral support for me. how cool is that? it has been decided that the rocker is not going to leave me, and i need to stop being a stress case about it all the time.

anyway… dads wife wasn’t doing too well… she wasn’t eating, drinking, or even thinking too well. my sister and my uncle butch left, and the rocker and i got food for the three of us. dad took a little rest while we ate. by 5, the rocker was tired and went to take a nap in the family room. dads wife and i sat next to him, complaining about how loud the family was next to us, and knitting our respective blankets.

when i decided to leave around 8, dads wife looked like she was going to break down, and i offered to stay with her at the hospital… she decided she could handle it, and we went home…

after a whirl-wind session at work, i showed up back at the hospital at 12:30 on tuesday. mar took dads wife to get something to eat (but she just had a milk shake) while i stayed with dad. we were waiting to be discharged. where the doctor was, i have no clue. i don’t know why he was being discharged anyway. i didn’t think he had been there long enough. but that wasn’t my decision. mar left after lunch, and dads wife and i waited for the doctor.

the family and patient next to us were the most obnoxious people i have ever seen. they talked as if they were screaming into a megaphone the whole time. they wouldn’t let their 90 year old dad have any drugs to stop his halucinations… it was just wrong.

we took dad into the family room, and enjoyed the quiet. they released dad at 4, and by 5:30 we still didn’t have a wheelchair, so dad and i walked out.

dads wife asked me to stay over night, and since i wouldn’t have to go to jury duty until the afternoon (if i was called), i decided to stay. at 4:30 am, my dad awoke with a massive headache. we went back to the hospital.

after 4 hours in the emergency room, it was decided that he had an alergic reaction to one of the new drugs… and they sent him home again. it was at this point that i had a “discussion” with the doctor. do you know that we hadn’t seen the same doctor twice the whole time? what kind of crap is that? i asked him why we were playing the back and forth game… it wasn’t fun for my dad, nor was it healthy for dads wife. the doctor basically told me that they couldn’t do more for my dad at the hospital than we could do for him at all… i said, yes, but when these issues come up, he is already here, and you can immediately help him. yeah right. DON’T EVER GO TO KAISER!

so, i spent the better part of the day with my dads wife… when mar and my uncle got there… i figured out a way to get away… and left.

thursday was a blur at work… but then so has today. i’m don’t totally have my wits about me yet.

but that is the story… just in case you wanted to know.

and, no things aren’t better between my sister and i. one would think this would have helped…. nope… and there you go.