Not Exactly A Christmas Miracle, But I'll Take It

Yesterday, we visited my dad and stayed with him through the morning. The doctor hoped to remove him from the machine that helped him to breathe - the first tiny step toward recovery. He was strong, it looked good. They took him off, and he did it. Whew. The next step would be to give him some tests, see where we were at, and figure out the pathway to recovery. All good.


Good enough that my mom and I went out for lunch, and home for a minute to grab some stuff before heading back.

But as well pulled into the driveway, mom's cell rang. It was the nurse on duty. While taking my dad down for the tests, he stopped breathing. He crashed. They rushed him back to his room and got him hooked back up.

The nurse asked if my dad had a living will (he does). Because, if he could never breathe on his own, if he could never leave a hospital bed... Now we're thinking, shit, are we suddenly having this conversation?After it all looked so well?

We rushed back to the hospital in terror. My dad was out. Unmoving. Unresponsive. I sincerely thought he was going to be gone within the hour.

Eventually, he woke up. He was very weak. I stayed as long as I could. They took him down for more tests.

Christmas Eve was a dark night of the soul. It was an experience I wouldn't wish on anyone. The up-and-down of the days before had been bad, but to repeat the roller coaster - and with even bigger stakes - was torture.

Morning came. I'd been through so much the day before that I woke with an odd feeling of calm. It wasn't that I was no longer worried about my dad, far from it. But it was like my emotional nerve endings had been cauterized. Simply put, I lost my shit yesterday, and today I got it back together.

We got to the hospital ready for anything.

A new doctor was there, Dr. Castro. He said that my dad hadn't lost the ability to breathe. Quite the opposite - everything is stable and strong. But the stoke had made his throat seize up, which happens sometimes. A simple tracheotomy would do the trick. And after that, high hopes.

Dammit, really? All of that over a tracheotomy? Man...

I've already taken two spins on this ride, so I'm not setting exactly dashing through the London streets, looking for a goose to buy for Tiny Tim. But... after the bleak Christmas Eve we suffered, I can at last feel like it'll be a Merry Christmas.