Life is fine

My personal life has been "fine". Work is great. Things are calm at home. Rob has been busy in his neck of the woods, so it's been a week since we've seen each other. He'll be here tomorrow night, I think! Emily got a job! She'll be working at Potbelly Sandwich Shop starting on Thursday. For now she's borrowing my father's car, and she's loving that. We worked together (!) detailing it yesterday. It was a great mother/daughter time and a great Mother's Day activity. Really. Did I mention work is great? It's one of the only times I can be totally distracted from all things medical. This morning was medical. The afternoon was gardening. Then back to medical.

Mom update.
Let's see...where did I leave off? Mom had the stone removed from her bile duct. Then she was fine, then the Rapid Response team had to get her out of some sort of medical distress on my watch. Then ICU, then fine, then lots of abdominal pain followed by a CAT scan and then old-fashioned (not laparoscopic) big incision surgery to have her very infected gallbladder removed. It burst during surgery. The surgeon said it was only the second time in her professional career that she's ever seen that happen. My mom had a very serious infection. She's on at least 2 weeks of IV antibiotics. She had a scan today to see if she's leaking bile fluid through her incision. Leaking bile fluid is serious. Geez. She had her first semi-solid food yesterday. We think she's getting better. She knows I took this picture, but don't tell her I posted it, OK? She has her Mother's Day gifts. I think it pretties-up the surroundings.

Dad update.
My dad has been doing great! He gets dressed every day. He has such a good attitude. I visited him yesterday and told him how proud I am of him. He could have fallen into a deep depression at the rehab place, but instead he's worked hard and gone along with the program. What follows is a story of bureaucracy at it's best. My father had a sleep study done for sleep apnea on Wednesday night in the building next door. We were told it would take 2-3 weeks to get the results. He needed the test in order for Kaiser to pay for a home bipap machine. We got a call on Friday saying that Kaiser would only pay for him to stay at The Magnolia Center (pretty name) till Tuesday. Magnolia didn't think my father was ready to go and told us we could appeal. We want him home and said no! My sister Ilene made arrangements to drive up today from GA so she could be here 24/7 till Saturday. At 3:00 today I got a call from the case worker at Magnolia saying that my father couldn't go home without a bipap machine and he couldn't get it till they had the results from the sleep study and that Kaiser wouldn't pay for him to stay beyond tomorrow, Tuesday. Got that? Yes, I put on my General's cap. After many phone calls (some of them a little heated), my father was authorized to stay till the results come in. They said that might be tomorrow or Thursday. Like my father said when I told him he was coming home on Tuesday, I'll believe it when I see it. He took the news very well. The biggest problem is that my sister has to leave to go to her son's graduation from Duke Law school on Saturday. Here's a picture of my dad. He doesn't know I'm posting it either.

Next post I'm gonna talk about cupcakes. Really.