There is no way to avoid distraction.
Feb. 4th, 2003 10:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bktheirregularI tend to get these medical updates second- or third-hand. Or sometimes just from overhearing.
Dad's having surgery at the end of the month. Malignancy in the prostate, so he's having it removed. And they say it's a normal procedure, well-understood, not much to go wrong ... but still. My father. Is being cut open. And parts of him are gonna be taken out.
And then he comes home this evening and gets on the phone with his doctor ... and they're talking mini-strokes. As in, brain mechanics going awry. Apparently he saw some dark spots in his vision or something and ...
I mean, right at the moment it looks like he's okay. Nothing bad happening. But ... he's past 70. He's like one of the elder statesmen at his university. And ...
...I can remember pounding at the chests of people younger than him. People whose time had run out. In ten years of ambulance duty ... I must have dealt with dozens of people who were either nearly out of time, or who were already gone.
Three came back. One doesn't count because she was a narc OD case that popped back before her heart stopped. One doesn't count because he ended up dying anyway in the hospital, so all we did was buy him a little time that he wasn't in a position to utilize for anything anyway. One came back. Most of the way. I think.
I got laughed at for wearing a uniform with a "CPR SAVE" bar on it, but I was proud of that fact. Well, they weren't laughing at us for the save bar, they were laughing at me and my crew for wearing the uniform on duty at all. Said we looked like Nazis or something.
Gr. Rambling.
The point being ... I think ... that that one guy was a lot younger than my dad. Definitely under 70. Maybe under 60. Meaning ...
...I hope Dad's luck holds.
And in ten days I turn ... How scary is it to look and wonder if you've seen more days go by than you've got left?
How scary is it to look and wonder if your life is half over?
Dad's having surgery at the end of the month. Malignancy in the prostate, so he's having it removed. And they say it's a normal procedure, well-understood, not much to go wrong ... but still. My father. Is being cut open. And parts of him are gonna be taken out.
And then he comes home this evening and gets on the phone with his doctor ... and they're talking mini-strokes. As in, brain mechanics going awry. Apparently he saw some dark spots in his vision or something and ...
I mean, right at the moment it looks like he's okay. Nothing bad happening. But ... he's past 70. He's like one of the elder statesmen at his university. And ...
...I can remember pounding at the chests of people younger than him. People whose time had run out. In ten years of ambulance duty ... I must have dealt with dozens of people who were either nearly out of time, or who were already gone.
Three came back. One doesn't count because she was a narc OD case that popped back before her heart stopped. One doesn't count because he ended up dying anyway in the hospital, so all we did was buy him a little time that he wasn't in a position to utilize for anything anyway. One came back. Most of the way. I think.
I got laughed at for wearing a uniform with a "CPR SAVE" bar on it, but I was proud of that fact. Well, they weren't laughing at us for the save bar, they were laughing at me and my crew for wearing the uniform on duty at all. Said we looked like Nazis or something.
Gr. Rambling.
The point being ... I think ... that that one guy was a lot younger than my dad. Definitely under 70. Maybe under 60. Meaning ...
...I hope Dad's luck holds.
And in ten days I turn ... How scary is it to look and wonder if you've seen more days go by than you've got left?
How scary is it to look and wonder if your life is half over?
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no subject
Date: 2003-02-06 06:29 am (UTC)*sympathy* I know how you feel. My dad's health bites, and he's at least ten years younger than your father.
Best wishes, okay?
they were laughing at me and my crew for wearing the uniform on duty at all. Said we looked like Nazis or something.
*rolling eyes* Whoever "they" are, they're obviously very silly people.
no subject
Date: 2003-02-06 09:20 am (UTC)As for who "they" were: a sort of faction of the ambulance corps. People who would go out in jeans and official polo shirt, instead of using the uniform that had been thoughtfully provided. One of them was the man in charge. Silly people, yes. I'm not on active duty with them anymore, and while that's not the primary reason, it's certainly one of the reasons...