By: Revanche

I have good news. And then really bad news.

September 13, 2007

The good news: Sis-in-law had just about given up on her daily vigil over the football tickets by yesterday evening. Two weeks of babysitting the ticket sale website hadn’t borne any fruit and she was deflated. But apparently my short note of encouragement that I sent galvanized her to give it one more go, and she’s now the proud purchaser of 4 reserved seats at the USC-Cal game at Cal! She was over the moon about it, and I know the boys will be too, when we spring it on them.

Except. Enter the bad news.

Except Boyducky’s papa is not doing well at all. He was moved to Intensive Care yesterday for observation and an emergency procedure that did not go at all as the doctors had anticipated. The procedure was much more invasive and much more complicated. We’re awaiting news on when his third procedure will be scheduled today, and if I’m exhausted from being there the last two nights after work, I can only imagine BoyDucky’s emotional and physical drainage.

Since BoyDucky’s flight was this morning, we had to cancel it. VirginAmerica charges $40 for canceling or changing flights, making his $49 one-way fare almost a wash, and we’ve yet to reschedule the return flight.

In the meantime, his poor mother is working everyday, fitting in hospital visits between taking care of the business and home, dealing with their insurance and hoping that the emergency procedures were performed by doctors on their network. All accompanied by the worry for her husband, of course.

The rather vague expectation now is that his recovery will now take between weeks to months, but we’ve no idea what kind of recovery it’ll be. We’re just praying that today’s surgery will go well and be the last one needed, so he can start recuperating. Then BoyDucky’s siblings have to get together and hash out a schedule for each of them to be home with their mom and take care of their dad for the next few weeks to months.

I don’t know what this means for the New York trip or the surprise birthday weekend yet, but I know we’ll have to address those logistics eventually. That’ll likely be my job, I serve as support crew so that they can attend to things directly related to his medical care.

In the meantime, I can only hope that his dad’s recovery goes well from this point on. From a practical standpoint, there are many factors to be grateful for during this time: the older kids make enough money to fly or drive home as necessary, and will probably be able to make some arrangements with their respective jobs to be there for their parents. They have steady jobs, and don’t have to worry about losing their jobs over taking care of a parent. Thank goodness their parents have decent insurance. It’ll still be expensive, but if they had to worry about how to afford any of the health care he needs, this whole ordeal would be much harder than it already is.