Dad 2....

I was worried about my dad. Our relationship was hard to explain. We spoke once every week or two and it was always very positive and full of love from his end. It's really easy to be whoever you want from 13 hours away. I think he was incredibly in love with his wife but not in love with his life. Again, I think he lived with a lot of guilt and he was on full disability so he couldn't work. I think he probably felt like Daynet was working for them and he felt guilty (again) for that. I was under the impression that he was trying to lose weight (he was extremely overweight) and had quit drinking. This tells me that he was aware of his problems but people with alcoholism have such a hard time with self control. Daynet said that the week before he was admitted, he went into a severe depression and consumed nothing but alcohol. Therefore, he was highly malnutritioned and his immune system was shot and very vulnerable to any germ floating in the air.

More than his health, I was worried about his salvation. More on this later...

How could I not read into any of this? Why didn't I just ask once, "how are you dad? No really... how are you..." Why didn't I ever tell him I forgave him for leaving us? Because I did.... I knew he was sick. No man, in his right mind, would just leave his family. There is always something darker, bigger.... Lot's of woulda coulda shoulda's hovering over my heart in the week to follow.

I continued getting updates from Daynet twice a day. She really is awesome. She remained totally optimistic throughout the following week, leaving me at (as much as possible) peace being in Oklahoma instead of in Ohio. At this point, he was on the respirator and lots and lots of meds, one of which was for low blood pressure. On Wednesday, the 21st, they decided to do a tracheotomy (sp) for the respirator because he had strep throat and the tubes were not helping the matter plus they had been down his throat for over a week which causes scar tissue. Meanwhile, there was a lot question as to why he wasn't waking up. We all assumed it was because of all the fluid they pumped into him when he arrived. His kidneys began to act up. Things started taking a turn for the worse. That's how the ICU works- it can take a turn for better or worse really really quickly. They couldn't pull fluids from the dialysis machine because of the low bp. They couldn't treat a lot of things because of the low bp. It was an ugly, vicious cycle.

On Thursday, April 22nd, Daynet called and sounded totally drained. Bless her heart, I could here it all over her voice, as much as she tried to hide it, I knew things weren't good. I couldn't let my dad go without letting him know I loved him and forgave him. So, we loaded up the highlander and set off to Columbus early the following morning with lots of people praying really really hard.

to be continued....