dad's heart

Many of you are aware that I've been dealing with my dad's health issues for sometime now. He's a month away from turning 90-years-old, he has Alzheimer's, his knees have given out, his eyesight and hearing are failing, he has type 2 diabetes and he was recently diagnosed with skin cancer.

Last night he was rushed to the emergency room with congestive heart failure, a condition that would have killed him years ago, but now they treat it with medications that flush the congestion out. So he's been filling catheter bags all night.

My sisters tell me that, despite all that, my dad is in his usual humorous spirits, doing his George-Burns-style shtick with the nurses. I swear, the man could be in excruciating pain and half conscious and he would still be joking, which at this point I will take. As I've said before, as long as he's joking I still have an important part of him with me.

Anyway, as you can imagine I'm distracted as hell by this today, trying to complete some pressing projects at work and searching for any kind of cheap flight back home to Kansas City this weekend, which are all in the $900 range. So if there aren't any posts from me for the next few days, you'll understand why. When things calm down I'll report more.

But in the meantime, here are a few older posts about my dad:

• the wisker on my earlobe (August 22, 2005)
  
• warranty (Oct. 25, 2005)
  
• working-class heirlooms (Nov. 3, 2005)