人生のアラート (Life Alert)
When I last saw my father he was laid up in the hospital in a coma with tubes coming out of every orifice. He's still in the hospital with tubes out the ying yang, but the good news is he's no longer comatose.
You may recall that, at the end of January, my father had an extremely serious stroke that left most of us thinking he wasn't going to make it. Two months later he's alive and kicking. Since I've been gone, his condition has gone from "insanely horrible" to "slightly better". He (maybe) recognizes people. He can kind of talk, but he has no voice, so I can't actually understand a word he's (maybe) saying. He also seems to kind of understand what other people are saying to him. He still has a gigantic breathing tube going into his neck, but the doctors say that he should be able to breathe on his own really soon. Unfortunately he can't eat solid food, feed himself, go to the bathroom on his own, or walk and all that other shit yet, but that's what months and months and months and months of intensive ass rehab is for. Nobody seems to know a) how much physical and mental function he'll be able to recover or b) when he'll be out the hospital, but if he keeps improving the way he has been since the stroke, I figure he'll be back in the house at least by the time Fall rolls around.
On a totally related note, if you're visiting someone in the hospital, be sure to find out if the person you're visiting has any highly contagious diseases before you walk up in the room all unprepared. I was the hospital the other day and the head nurse was in my dad's room doing some shit, but didn't really say anything beyond "Hi" and his name. Later on, another nurse came in and was like, "Uh...you know you need to be wearing scrubs, right? Because he has a highly contagious butt disease." Sure would have been nice to know before I got all up in my dads face and rub his hands and feet down with lotion.
So if I die, you know why.