Not too sure if anyone reads this but I guess that it makes it a prime place for everything I guess. For those of you who do read this, how is your life going? First and most important thing I want you to go and give your parent(s) a huge hug, just say thank you for making to this point in your lives. I will come back to the importance of this in a second. I am going to be basically dumping alot of stuff here right now and forgive me if it seems like a lot in a little space. So early this summer I went in for what was to be my second to last checkup on the ankle. Basically both the doctors and myself had reached the point that it has healed about as much as it is going to and the only way that it is going to get 100 percent would be to totally reinjure the thing again. Not something that I wanted to do. However, during the standard checkup stuff my blood pressure was high, like scary stroke or heartattack high. The doctor recommended that I went and see someone for it. Alright, I will admit that I kind of blew it off as nothing, after all I'm Irish, temper and high blood pressure just go together. But my parents won out, and off to the doctor we went. The doctor sent me in for some blood tests, to see if it was a temporary or a genetic thing. Hypertension, i.e. cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure, runs in my family. And it runs in me. So I am on medication to fix that. Not a real biggie, avoid over sodium stuff. No problem right. Well then that test also figured out something interesting, I am a type 2 diabetic. For those not down with the lingo that means that I don't need insulin, but my body has a hard time processing the sugars that I eat. For reference again at this point my blood sugar level was 384 at this point. 86-100ish is normal. So a new regime took over me, soda was out the window. No more dew, thats right none. It has been a total life change, but in the span of just under 2 months with the help of medication I have dropped my blood sugar by 280 points, and now am down to 104. This even surprised my doctor. Added bonus was all of the weight that I have been losing as well. Since I am too poor for new jeans I couldn't begin to tell you how many pants sizes I have gone down, but my belt is too big for me right now, its on it's last little notch which is holding up pants way too big for me. So this is a good thing, kinda, I would kill for a piece of dark chocolate right now, you have no idea.
This pretty much brings us up to speed to this week. Minus all of the fun of moving again and the bills involved in that. But now we move into this week. School is started and getting into the flow of that and a new job, I have moved into the position of Games Manager at the Wood Center. My mom calls me tues afternoon just after noon, asking me to come and get her to take her to her car. My dad was laid off by the railroad, she manages to get that info. However, he is taking it really hard, literally he is only saying like 5 different words, one at a time. "Boy" "geeze" "right" "no" "yeah". I meet my mom at brewsters over by the bentley mall at about 15 after noon on that day, where I begin to take her to her car which is over at van horn road Sourdough Fuels. She urges me to call my dad to see if I can get any info out of him, maybe he will open up to me. So I call as we drive over there, and the whole conversation is pretty much those five words from him in different random ways. I drop mom off at her car around 12:30 and then we both head up to my parents place. We get there about 1ish. My dad is sitting down in a chair by my parents television. Mom and I start talking to him, he still cannot talk properly, but appears to be in a state of shock. We manage to figure out that he has been served papers terminating his employment at the Alaska Railroad. We figure our that he has gotten hurt again, his right hand is pretty puffy and his ankle is black and blue. Mom asks him to get up to see if he can walk and he manages, stiffly though. His talking still remains the problem. He can recognize this issue that he is having but seems to be in control of is motor controls (i.e. he can smile fully, move his arms and legs and apparently has feeling in them). I go down to find the papers that he got served from the Railroad and they say something to the extent that he is hereby terminated immediatly, even though they must have been served to him midway through his shift that day. Very very abrupt language. My father then goes to take a shower, I give my mother the papers and go down to see my grandmother who has just gotten home, by this time it is around 2p.m. on tues. I chat a little bit with my grandmother avoiding telling her about my dad's inability to speak but conveying what has happened to him about work. Mind you my father has never been fired, that I know of, and laid off once because the company at the time, which is now where O.K. Lumber is, was closing. I come back upstairs to see how he is down to find him wrapped up in an blanket with my mom cold packing his ankle and hand. It comes time for me to leave to go to my next class, well a little early, about 3:30p.m. with my class starting at 5. I could not miss this class as it is my CCNA class, though I missed my earlier class that day. Throughout the rest of the night I keep in touch with my family with no real change in my dad, I talked to him on the phone during breaks with my CCNA class, and then tell mom that if nothing changes by tomorrow, Weds. 9/12, that she should take him to the doctors. I went home after class and eventually manage to get to bed. Weds comes around and I am awoken by my work asking me to come in, this is about 8:30 in the morning. I get out of bed, throw on some clothes and head to work. En route I call my mom to check up on my dad, where she tells me that she is taking dad to the doctors as he still cannot speak right. I asked if she wanted me to meet her and she tells me that she will call me and let me know what is going on. I arrive to work just after 9:30. My mother calls me about 30 minutes later to let me know that an abulence is coming for dad, who is at Tanana Valley's First Care, to take him to the Emergency Room where they are going to rund more tests. I ask her to keep me updating on what is going on. A while later she calls to let me know that they have run several tests, EKG, Blood Work, and are going to do an MRI. Again I ask her to keep me in the loop and I will be there at the first sign that they need me. A while goes by, this is just before 2, and I recieve a call from my mom, my father has had a stroke. I clock out of work and head for the ER. I arrive at the emergency room just around 2:30p.m. I go in to talk to mom and to see dad where she tells me that he is going to be admitted to the hospital. I settle down to wait with them. Two hours go by and they still have not admitted him, nor have I seen any sign of the doctor, though the nurses have come in and out to check on him and give us updates. Mom and I reach the conclusion that I am going to go and get my Grandmother and if he is moved then she will call me. I leave the ER just after 4 and head to my parents home to get my grandmother. I pick her up and we arrive back at the ER just before 5p.m. My cousin Stebbie is also there. Apparently more tests were ordered by the doctor and dad gets taken off to a sonogram and a ultrasound. We wait in one of the ER's waiting rooms and about an hour or so later dad re-emerges from the tests. He is going to be admitted to the Intensive Care Unit so that they can observe him. With more tests to come tomorrow. We follow dad into the ICU and then wait while they settle him in. Grandma and I go in first at 6:50 where we spend 10 minutes or so with dad then the shift change comes on and we are ushered out. We cannot get back in until 8 so with mom staying the night there at the hospital with dad, grandma and I head to my place where I can pick up a few things as I am going to stay at my parents to take care of grandma. I call mom on her cell at 9ish when I have gotten my stuff and gotten grandma settled as much as possible downstairs. Dad still cannot talk properly, I tell him that I love him and he replies, "yeah, yeah". So tomorrow I have to go to classes with my father being in the hospital with even more tests being run. Though I am going to see him before I go to class, taking grandma back with me. Not sure if they are going to keep him another night, but if so, I know that I will be at my parents to make sure that grandma is alright as well.
Thats pretty much the low down on what happened. However, if you have never met my father, I guess that you just can't imagine how much this is effecting everyone, myself included. My father is one of the strongest men I have ever met, however is also a man who is quick with help, and a joke. Granted it might not always be in good taste, but the joke and smile is there. To see him tied up to all of those monitors, not able to talk, it seriously has almost broken me. I will be honest, whenever I am alone, which hasn't been much, I have been tearing up, or out right crying. So many things have happened that I can feel them being etched into my memory. I am grateful for the friends and family who have been there. I think that so many know that the one way that I have been keeping sane is to be strong for them. I know that if I should break down, it falls apart. I cannot distract my mother from being at the place she needs to be, in more ways than one, at my father's side. My father needs me to be strong, no matter what, so he can believe in a full recovery if it can happen. Hell I need to feel that he can fully recover. The anger that I have for the Alaska Railroad is great. They are responsible for this, or the catalyst none the less. He just seems to be trapped, in himself, and for my father it is almost a state of torture. Granted he might not always be talking about stuff you want to talk about, like politics, but his voice, that deep voice, is almost always there. A constant in life, and now to even hear him talk, that voice isn't the same. I just want him better and I know that the road ahead is just very very long. For those that know my father, please call, let him hear your voices in support for his healing, for his recovery, speedy and full. If you don't know a number, call me, I can tell you a number, or an e-mail to send.
Ahh the Laughing Man. This image is from the Ghost in the Shell: StandAlone Complex 1st Gig series and would take a while to explain the total meaning of the image. For those familiar with the meaning of it yes I know that via posting it I am falling into the Stand Alone Complex but I do have to admire the words and the meaning. 
