Released

Well, he was going to be released this morning, but it only took until 320 pm to get discharged. My dad was definitely tired and sore when I saw him last this afternoon, but my mom was taking him back to their house. Hopefully he'll be back to his good ole self in another day or two.

Health Care Sucks

So I experienced first-hand as the outsider just how bad our health care system can be. I've had experience with the local hospital, and it has always been pretty good, minus a few annoyances that caused delays, but due to emergent situations arising before my scheduled procedures, which were not as emergent (and as a patient, I would rather they deal with emergent situations as they arise). I have also always had good, locally-based insurance that is "in bed," so to speak, with the hospital.

My dad on the other hand, has minimal coverage, at best. And it certainly seems to make a difference; maybe they were just having a bad 48 hours.

The surgical staff for the ERCP was amazing. His nurses were great. But some of the other services that go along with a stay in the hospital were less than adequate, as far as I am concerned.

The run-around BS that you get is ridiculous. 

Yeah, we're going to do your procedure as soon as you get to Burlington. Nothing to eat or drink (NPO) from 10 a.m. on.

Um, really? At 730 pm? Doubtful, but what do we know.

Oh, yeah. Procedure not happening tonight. It's scheduled for the morning. So you can eat. 

Dining service? Not so much. That would be waitress Jana going to the cafe at 830 at night to pick up a meal because no one was around to bring it up to the patient care area.

Oh, the surgery is scheduled for 1 pm you say? Awesome. NPO again from midnight on.

OMG, they actually brought him to endoscopy at 1 pm, in surgery by 140. Miracle. And it went smoothly (the only part that really did). You can eat as soon as you are back to your room.

Oh, we didn't order you a dinner. You can call and have something brought up. 530 call. 650 no food. 651 call. 730 food. For real??? No food since midnight and you can't figure out how to get a meal up there. Pathetic. Really pathetic.

Pain meds? Oh, apparently he has surgery, in addition to the fact that he has friggin stage IV cancer and is in pain all the time, and he has to hunt down a nurse to get something. Fortunately, once he got the nurse, it wasn't long before she administered the happy meds so he could have some relief.

But seriously? How delinquent can one set of people be over the course of 48 hours. No, certainly he wasn't going to die in there, but he certainly wasn't treated as he should have been.

Okay, rant over. I need some sleep before I have to deal with "them" again tomorrow.

Double Stent

My dad's ERCP went exceptionally well today. Turns out the tissue and grown into the mesh and was causing a blockage. They put a second stent inside the first to give it extra support and drained a ton of nasty, tarry-looking bile (I saw the photos from the scope). I can only imagine how awful one would feel with that nasty stuff in your system...eewwww. But I digress.

The procedure only took about 20 minutes, by far the shortest, easiest form that procedure can take, according to the nurse who was in with him. Overnight for observation and then back to Potsdam in the morning.

Thank goodness this was as "simple" a "fix" as it was. My poor mother and sister had seen him in pretty rough shape. I was fortunate enough not to get to see that side. But for their sanity, I am soooooo relieved this was nothing related to the cancer...just an old person plumbing issue. :)

Those Off-Time Phone Calls

My sister called me at about 12:40 p.m. I instantly knew something was up because she never calls at that hour of the day, as she knows I am at work.

My dad went to the ER last night with a fever, very out of it, and among other things, they determined he had an elevated bilirubin count. They admitted him to CPH for the night. Apparently he is being transferred to FAHC this afternoon and will here overnight for (hopefully) surgery tomorrow. They think the stent in the bile duct is blocked, but they aren't 100% sure of what is going on. Right now the plan is to unblock the duct and see what else is going on.

I should have known something was up when no one answered the phone at my parents' house last night...prayers and positive thoughts, please. I hope this is just one of those ups and downs and there will be more ups to come.

40th

My parents celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary last weekend, a milestone for sure. I've been celebrating anniversaries with my parents for as long as I can remember. I wonder if my dad will make it to their 41st.

IHOP

So this is only sort of related. Related because my family was here in VT for chemo (that didn't happen because of some levels on the blood work results...maybe Erika can add some detail to that), and we went to eat at the recently-opened IHOP in the South Burlington Mall.

We tried to go last week, but there were about 20 people in front of us, so we decided not to wait that long. So we tried again today. I say try (I'll get to that part), because even though when we arrived, the restaurant was half empty, we spent more than 40 minutes waiting for our meals. And that was after the 10-minute wait to order drinks and another 10-minute wait to get (some of) them. Three waters, an iced coffee, and a Pepsi. Not too difficult, at least my former days as a waitress tell me it's not.

After about 20 minutes after we got our drinks, the waiter came back to refill my iced coffee. Seeing as how they weren't busy, I asked about our meal status (thinking they should be there any minute now). He said about another 6-7 minutes. Ooooookaaaaaay, 30 minutes for breakfast food on a slow day. But alas, no food in another 6-7 minutes, not even in another 20 minutes. I flagged down a waitress and asked her to check on our meals. She went in the kitchen, came back out, and proceeded to set her tables without even stopping back.

About 3 minutes later, our waiter comes out of the kitchen with (again, some of) our meals. And they are....wait for it...COLD! Clearly they have been sitting there under the lamps for quite some time. Nothing remotely fresh about them. Ugh. We are NOT eating this, and definitely not paying for it. The waiter goes to get the manager (another wait). He comes over to let us know he's going to comp the meal (ya think?!?!), blah blah blah, and would really like us to try them again sometime.

Um, no. Not even if you comp that meal, too.

So I came back to work without having eaten lunch. Whatever. It's a good thing I had some Pop Tarts in my desk drawer.

Another sleepless night.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night. Literally. Not a wink. I finally took a nap at 9:30 or so today. Darn Patrick Swayze. You might giggle, but for real, it was completely his fault. See, I was all hopeful that dad was going to be just fine on the premise that Patrick was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and he was just fine. Now he’s sick…really sick. He was my great white hope. What a poo. Then I started thinking about the lady with no expiration date. Hm. Haven’t seen one of those commercials in a while. Maybe she expired. Too bad…she was really very pleasant. Michael Landon. He seemed like a nice guy. Successful, great dad on TV and in real life too. Uncle Bob. Amazing dad, wonderful guy all around, a really great uncle. Maybe bad things like this only happen to really nice people. I should have mom look into being a little more rotten for safety’s sake. I talked to dad for all of about 2 minutes and then he let me go. That’s how you know he’s not feeling well, when he declines the offer to talk to one of his babies.