hospital again

(Augh! Apologies for the too-wide formatting of my archived individual entries. I haven't been able to figure out what's causing that yet and haven't much time until the end of the week. If anyone sees the problem, please do let me know, thanks!)

Well, we're back to "wait and see" mode again with my Dad. As I mentioned in an earlier Blatherings today, we ended up in the emergency ward of the Peel Memorial Hospital again last night. This time, however, he ended up in the waiting room most of the time because the preliminary triage assessment didn't warrant immediate attention.

While I understand this, it was also tough watching my Dad feel so ill, barely able to walk on his own because of the nausea, and have to wait in an uncomfortable hospital waiting room for over six hours, holding a plastic bed pan in his lap in case he needed to throw up. My understanding is that he would have been seen sooner except that there were so many emergency admissions last night that they eventually had to see him in the "holding area" rather than give him a temporary cot in the regular emergency unit.

About 2 a.m., he was able to lie down across several chairs, with a coat cushioning his head. I watched over him and our stuff, trying to stay awake. Jeff stayed around until about 2, but then I forced him to go home and get some sleep because I didn't want to worry about him dozing off on the drive home.

By the time my Dad was examined by a doctor at around 3 a.m., he and I were both bone-weary. The doctor (who also looked pretty tired) said that my dad was better off going home for a few hours and coming back for a specialist appointment than being checked into the hospital. We took a cab back to Dad's house, and we both crashed almost immediately. I slept in Jim's old room.

Jeff came to pick us up at the hospital after Dad's appointment the next day, drove Dad to his house to pack, then we dropped him off at my sister's, where he'll be staying for a few days. The current plan is for Dad to come here on Friday. We didn't learn anything new at the specialist appointment this morning, but several tests did get moved up in schedule, including a liver ultrasound scan.

Things are stable enough that I called Jeff Bohnhoff and told him to feel free to come over, though I might be pretty braindead tonight. We're getting together with Allison and Jodi tomorrow.

Really looking forward to seeing Jeff! Hopefully I can get him to do a Guest Blathering tomorrow.

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Today's Blatherpic is a photo I took during the birthday party we had for Annie on Sunday night, before we got the call from my Dad. This is Barbie's companion, Ken. Boy, has Ken ever changed since my Ken days. Note the trendy haircut, the Backstreet Boy look.