Dad wound up in the hospital at the start of the week. Despite the fact
that his donor kidney failed earlier this year, he still has to take
immunospuppresant drugs to keep from rejecting it (I’m told it’s bad to
remove it even though it no longer works). Unfortunately, that leaves
him open to a number of germs that most of us would shrug off. He
contracted some kind of lung infection and showed really bad fever
symptoms, which led to his being taken to the hospital.
Back in 1999, a few months before my sister’s wedding, Dad got very
ill, and a good chunk of what kept the ol’ warhorse going was my sister
saying “I’ll be very sad if you’re not at my wedding.” Following the
same tack, when I visited him in the coronary care unit last night, I
got him sitting up and conversing lively with talk about
how Chanukah with Wendy’s family went (the latkes were delicious, they really made me feel like part of the family and I
made out like a bandit, present-wise) and various wedding plans.
The silver lining in the could is that Dad’s condition inspires me to keep working out and eating right.
I’m going to drop by this afternoon and leave him his favourite light reading: People and US magazine. Dad’s a great guy, but his taste in reading material is atrocious.
Once again, if you have any prayers, good thoughts (or if any of you Feng Shui types want to move the coffee table a couple of inches for his sake), they’d be appreciated.
