When Life Gets In The Way

I can't believe that it was March when I made my last post. I'm sure some of you have given up on me. Life has just gotten in the way for me. I'm sure that is a common problem in today's society. We all get caught up in life and it's ups and downs.

The biggest thing that my family and I have been dealing with is my father's health. January 6th he went in for surgery to repair what we thought was a ruptured diverticuli that abscessed. After nine hours of surgery, he came out of it with no colon and an ileostomy, an incision that went from sternum to pubic bone and two ureters that were nicked during surgery.

Dad spent most of January at Cleveland Clinic before he was transferred to a Long Term Acute Care Facility (LTAC). He was there for almost another two months. Then, after the LTAC, he was sent to a nursing home for a few weeks. There, he became very dehydrated and had a drastic change in mental status resulting in an emergency trip back to Cleveland in renal failure. So, another stay at Cleveland before going to another LTAC. He was at that LTAC for around a month before finally returning home in May.

Of course, the transition to home has not been an easy one. It has been so hard for my mom to take care of him now that his diet is so hard to get right having the ileostomy. Too much or too little sugar and salt affect it. No more water. So much pasta or starch...It has been a giant learning curve for all of us, especially mom. Don't even get us started on the supplies to use for the ileostomy and fistulas...

Poor Dad. He's been run through the ringer!!! He's missed birthdays, anniversaries, holidays--so much life--being away those months. The whole ordeal has aged us all, especially Mom and Dad.

It makes you really appreciate your health, your family and your faith--not necessarily in that order, but I hope you know what I mean.

During that whole time, I don't know how I kept it up. I can remember being so tired, yet having to keep plugging away. I don't know how many miles I put on my car driving to Cleveland, Akron, Millersburg and Mansfield. One thing is certain, I'm not a big ninny when it comes to driving on the freeway now. Bills didn't get paid, meals didn't get eaten. All the work I did in February went down the tubes because you eat what you can find that is open at 1 am. Fights started easily and I cried easily too. Sleep and rest were just words in the dictionary.

As my mom, brother and I sat one evening with dad at home sharing the ups and downs of our end of the past few months, I summed it up for dad this way,"As hard and trying as it all was, we'd do it all again for you."