the best kind of free on a friday

real life situation:

*ring ring*
Hello?
Hi.
Dad?!!! Does this mean you are a free man??
Yup.
Yay! Are you on your way home now??
Yup.
You must be so happy...
Yup.
Dad...are you crying??
Yup.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This has been the longest 17 days ever. It feels like it's been a month.

I know I haven't been giving up much information here lately, but this last week has been INSANE. There have been up to 3 different crews at times working on 2 different structures at the new house. MyFavoriteKid had a slew of end of year performances and promotions and activities, plus he needed a good dose of my mad parenting skills when he got himself on restriction. The little chihuahua has needed to go to the vet (surgery next week, more on that soon, I am sure). And then of course, my dad.

I had to due a bunch of research about my dad. And I needed to be at the hospital daily because I really needed to hear the poop from the doctors myself, and because I really wanted to support both of my parents as best I could.
(I wonder how many times I can say really and really mean it LOL)

My dad, it turns out, is MrOneInFiftyThousand. My dad has Microscopic Polyangitis, which is a type of Vasculitis. The general gist is that my dad's body is creating antibodies that are attacking his own blood vessels. For my dad, this first appeared in his kidneys a few months ago (although it was believed to just be plain ol' kidney failure), and then it showed up in his lungs a couple of weeks ago (when it was first thought to be a heart attack or something). One of my dad's many specialists told me that my dad's case was pretty much the talk of the hospital there for awhile, because they just couldn't figure it out.

Dad has been looking great the last few days. He's made a real solid effort to get strong and to follow orders and to do his exercises and get strong so that he could go home instead of being shipped off to a rehab facility. He is going to be on some seriously harsh drugs for awhile, and he is going to have weekly doctors visits and blood tests to monitor the levels of things he is on so that they can taper it down as quickly as possible. He had a fair amount of steroids pumped into him to get the inflammation off the blood vessels, and now he's on immune suppressants as they try to get his body to stop manufacturing this antibody.

In other words, don't sneeze on him.

He's got so many meds, and so many changes to his meds, that my mom and I spent at least and hour and a half tonight making charts and surrounding ourselves with bottles and labels and post-its and trays of those pill sorter-organizer things, because they all need to be taken at various times of the day. I'm sure that they're going to be rearranging his meds regularly for then next few months, too....so it's gonna be crazy trying to get it just right. We also spent quite some time working out what he is allowed to eat or not eat. I mean, wtf does it mean when one section says, "eat lean proteins," and the next section says, "limit legumes"...?? Seriously???

Mom's been a rockstar, but we're both beat and borderline crabby (well, I actually just crossed that border into flat out irritated a few minutes ago). I think we could both use a glass of wine and a box of kleenex soon....once we have time to fall apart.


So great to have him back.
When I left my mom's tonight, he was all tucked up in his own bed with his blanket all up under his chin. He looked like a little bug in a rug.


Thanks so much for all of your love, support, prayers, and especially the laughter.
I am positive it has all made a difference.