Update Explaining My Absence

Due to all the e-mail questions and comments about where I have been since last week have not gone un-noticed. I admit, I have not been paying attention to The Sting Of The Scorpion for the last several days. I have been distracted with some family health issues. Just know I will get all caught up this morning. But before I do I wanted to go over why I have been out of the loop for a while. Mid last week we had quite a family scare and it has set most of us into panic mode because of everything we didn’t know. Here is what happened.

My dad, 66, had been feeling quite a bit of abdominal pain, outright discomfort, nausea, and complete loss of his appetite. He let this continue, not in total silence, but what he had dismissed as gas, until finally this past Wednesday when I convinced him to contact his physician. He went in to his appointment in the late afternoon where blood tests and a physical examination were performed. The doctor made the observation on how dehydrated and pale my dad looked and recommended different ways to combat this from worsening. The doctor the released him and sent him home to rest. Later that night the doctor called my dad at home and told him his tests were back and he would like him to meet him at the hospital in the morning for some further testing. When my dad arrived he was met in the waiting room by a nurse who was going to expedite his admittance. After being admitted he was subjected to a battery of tests after he had to have an ultrasound done just to get an IV in his arm because he was so dehydrated.

We waited the remainder in his room in the hospital while we eagerly awaited all the test results. Shortly after 9pm the doctor came in to explain it all to my dad and all of us. The short version was that his gallbladder had shut down. He promptly let my dad know he had a 7am surgery to remove the gallbladder. We are all a little relieved now, my sister and I said our goodbyes and let him and my mother know we would be out this weekend to check on him. At 10am the following morning, Friday, my mother called to inform me that it was more extreme than a simple gallbladder removal, it was consumed by gangrene. At this point I headed back out to the hospital to check on my mom and dad. At this point this was all the information my mother had. I sat with my dad the remainder of the day and into the evening. He was given a whole slew of antibiotics, pain killers, and other medications throughout the day so he was not really aware of too much going on. My mother didn’t want to tell him that it was gangrene because she felt it would be better coming from the doctor.

Saturday morning rolled around and I was in the hospital by 7am. He started asking questions about his release and the nurses would tell him they didn’t have any orders for that as of yet. He was told he would go home the next day and now he is being told something different. To say the least he was getting a little agitated. By noon time I had time to convince my mother that we needed to tell him how extreme the surgery actually was so he will know why they are keeping him in for further observation. He took it pretty well and knew that sooner or later the doctor would actually come in to talk to him personally. The day pressed on and at 6pm Saturday evening the doctor made an appearance. He had a very informative talk with my dad and also explained to him sternly that he almost waited to long to be seen. Luckily, in the doctor’s best opinion, he explained that all the gangrene had been removed. He also explained that it had not passed into his intestines, other organs, or the bloodstream. Since he was recovering nicely he would be releasing him in the morning on Sunday.

For the first time in many, many years, I saw tears in my dad’s eyes because he knew he had just cheated death. He promised us all that in the future he would not be so stubborn when it comes to going to the doctor. The doctor had explained the gangrene is not something you want to screw with. We were all pretty taken with this ordeal. We all have sat back and given many things new attention, like our wills and family affairs. I took my dad home Sunday morning, got him all settled in, and called it a day myself. I hadn’t really been home in the last 5 days so I wanted to spend some time with my wife and kids. Lucky for me there was some icing on the cake Sunday evening, I got to Skype with my oldest daughter and my 2 y/o granddaughter who live in South Dakota. There is no better feeling than your young granddaughter to tell you she loves you and it will be okay grandpa.

We all had the crap scared out of us this past week and we owe our thanks to the doctor who was wise enough to do a great job with my dad. I know, for myself for sure, I will always be in his debt for giving my dad another chance in life. He’s not done yet because he is a stubborn old fart who just don’t know how to give up. I know now that he will take his aches and pains a little bit more serious and not dismiss everything as “gas”. I didn’t know too much about gangrene before this last week, but after allot of reading it scares me to know that my dad was riding that razor’s edge and didn’t even know it. Anyway, that has been my last few days, I just wanted to let everyone know I didn’t fall off the edge of the planet or something.