Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Tough Times

Well, this year has certainly thrown a lot my way.  Over the past twelve months I have lost a great boss and friend, carried my workplace (again), found and lost another friendship, and exhausted myself with graduate studies.  But that, it would seem, is not sufficient.

As I write this I am sitting the in the cafeteria at the University of Iowa hospital.  Yesterday, I texted my dad, just stupid stuff.  I never heard back.  Something inside me said "WARNING!"  I realized that we hadn't heard from him since Sunday.  I got in my car, drove to his house and warming bells really started ringing. The lights were off, the truck was in the garage, he wasn't answering any phones.

After about half an hour of ounding in doors and windows, mom left work early and we decided to call the police.  They took forever.  Well, 15 minutes seems like forever.  Finally, after a second officer joined the first (someone I had gone to school with), they busted in the doors and found him lying on the living room floor, five feet away from where I was knocking--his cell phone was on the desk just a foot away.

He was somewhat responsive, answering some questions but not others. We don't know for sure but we think he had been laying there since sometime Monday.  About 1 a.m. This morning they transported him here to Iowa City.  They told us they would probably do surgery in the morning, so after some debate, we decided to get a little sleep and then head here.

At 6 when mom called to find out where he was, they said he'd just come out of surgery because when he got here it was much worse than they first thought.  What we later found out is that they put two drains in his head to let the extra fluid out.

A couple years ago he found out he had a cyst in his brain that might never cause problems, but it shifted and blocked the flow of spinal fluid.  They think he's been having seizures so right now all we can do is wait.  If they can, if he seems like he is coming out of it ok, they will remove the cyst.  If not...

We continue to wait.

Curveball

I've been excitedly awaiting my gastric sleeve surgery and this weekend was a three day weekend. I was planning to get so much done. Boy...