Thursday stuff

This is my friend Rhonda and I in the balloon. My hair is all flat because I'd been wearing a hat earlier but took it off in the heat of the fire keeping the balloon aloft. We had a great time and would definitely do it again. We got the deal from Groupon and I highly recommend you check out Groupon if you don't know about it already. It is the shiznit. And I thank Rhonda for this photo, she's awesome. And a good friend.

So my dad's in the hospital. I haven't posted about this because I don't think my mom is sharing this with people, but I want to "talk" about it.

He went in last Wednesday, so it's been more than a week now. He's had another stroke, it would seem, but getting medical info from him is difficult. He doesn't always know what he's talking about and tells me more about what he thinks is going on, than about what might really be going on.

But I do know this; He's got numbness (but not paralysis) all along his right side. It's sort of waxed and waned, but I don't think it's going away and next stop is a Rehab Center where they'll work with him to hopefully recover, however much that's possible.

He's got a small artery in his brain that is causing these mini-strokes he's been having, and the one he had that put him in the hospital last week, and the docs thought maybe there was a blood clot there and that if they could move it, the numbness would go away. Now they're saying there's no blood clot, it's just that the artery is slowly closing off because of plaque, and that there's nothing they can do.

So, as he says, he'll either get better, get worse, or stay the same. We're hoping for better of course, but I expect this will be what eventually does him in. My sister had initially said she thought they would do brain surgery if it seemed like all other options were exhausted, but right now it's too risky and the risks outweigh the benefits. When does that change, I wonder? When he's in a bed, immobile? Doesn't sound too good to me.

I'm sort of commpletely blah about the whole thing. I'm not sad, I'm not angry, I'm not really anything. I don't think I've quite processed what's happening. Mostly because he seems ok. Sure, he might not be able to walk for a bit because of the numbness, but therapy should help that and he can move, he's not paralyzed at all, and he can talk. Aside from the numbness, which I can't see, he seems like his normal self. I hope it stays that way.

I saw a shooting star on my way to visit him Tuesday night, and I made a wish.
-A