Shit!

Early yesterday evening, everything was fine. Mother called from the hospital, Dad was out of intensive care, they were going to take him for his first walk. Everything pointed to an accellerated recovery, so I went to see a friend who has been in the horrible position of having to put down a dog that she adored. I didn't turn my cell phone on - heck, I was only gone a few hours.

Apparently the news that my father had a heart attack hit just as I walked out the door.

I came home to four messages from my brother, which boiled down to "unless you have running plague buboes, get your ass to Mother's side right now." And I see his point of view, but I also saw mine, which was that I'd been up for 20 hours, was nightblind, Johns Hopkins was a huge place in a bad neighborhood, and I wasn't budging until I knew exactly where Mother was. And she wasn't answering her cell phone.

When not even Johns Hopkins could find her (the people on the phone were very nice to me), they left messages around for her to call me, which she did. On a scale of 1 - 10, it was a 1 (I think that means mild. I hope that means mild!) He was getting an emergency angioplasty. Aunt Mary was coming up today at noon, and my brother was heading up tomorrow, with a Monday arrival time. And I was MOST EXPRESSLY not to show up unless I could prove I wasn't sick myself because Mother didn't want to spread anything to him.

And... I can't. I've had a mild sore throat and faintly achey sinuses - y'know, that kind of pre-cold feeling - for several days now. Thing is, I also feel that way when under stress and when low on sleep. Like, say, right now.

I was also told she would call this afternoon and not to call in the morning, which is why I'm daring to get online now.

I'm falling apart in all directions. And when I went to get food this morning (there was none in the house, I'd figured I'd be at the hospital) the radio's telling me it's the most fucking wonderful time of the year.

I don't want to lose Christmas. I don't want to lose my Daddy!!

Guardedly Good News

Well, I've sworn in a conversation with my strict Baptist aunt and yelled at my Mother who has snapped back, and entirely broken down. Not my most gracious day. It's utterly killing me not to have news every second on the second.

However, Mother has called, with the caveat that she will call if there is news but not if there isn't (which is why I dare come online.) In either case, she will call tomorrow and we will see if I'm feeling up to coming up (because if this is a true sore throat she doesn't want me near, while if it's just stress, I should be okay to come up.)

Bottom line - the heart attack appears to be the natural consequence of my father going off his daily aspirin and eating all that high-fat animal protein in an attempt to control the blood sugar. They've put in two stents and he is recuperating so well that they're about to ship him away from the cardio section and back where he started. Dad is able to talk (although he doesn't particularly want to; he's been asking Mother to just sit quietly with him.) According to Mother, "Because there were 15 people in his room 30 seconds after this started, the doctor says there is no, or imperceptible, damage to his heart." There is some talk of discharging him on the original schedule.

So that's the news, and I'm taking hope from it.