My dad is back in the hospital for another major issue. It’s been 3 days now, going on 4, and he’s not improving yet.
Big trigger warning for illness, hospitals, doctors, death, and COVID in the text below. I’m not doing a great job of handling this gently right now.
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On Friday, Feb 19, he had another operation performed on his heart. An ablation. “Routine” in as much as having a major heart condition and ongoing operations can be.
On Monday morning, he returned to the hospital due to shortness of breath. It escalated quickly and he was put on oxygen, then intubated and sedated to support ongoing lung damage of unknown origin.
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He’s had 3 COVID tests so far, since Friday. All negative. But that’s still not a 100% “all clear” for this virus. None of the tests are 100% certain. And his symptoms are consistent with COVID, but it could be a different viral infection, or some bacterial infection, or a toxic reaction to his main heart medication.
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Which I guess is moot, because no matter what the cause that sent him there, he’s still in the most dangerous place to be during this particular pandemic: the pulmonary wing of a major metropolitan hospital.
He hasn’t been vaccinated yet. He manages software engineers and projects from a desk and over the phone, he hasn’t needed to leave the house for work for a year- and he was already working from home because of a heart failure LAST February, just before the pandemic took hold in the US anyway…
He should have been safe from it. Or at least able to remain safe from it. But the virus is indifferent to his position. As are any other potential bacterial infections he might have gotten, especially from having to visit the hospital.
No, if there were any respite or a good chance to slip by this yet again, he would have had to avoid gaining a heart condition in the first place- and that’s going on decades too late.
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So here’s the real reason I’m writing this out:
I cannot tell if this will go up or down.
But odds are it will go down from here. Three major issues in about two and a half years… The third landing squarely during a viral pandemic that attacks the cardiovascular system… This does not leave him with a high rate of survivability.
And I am preparing myself for that eventuality.
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Usually, I can get a pretty good vibe from people about how they feel when they’re talking about a subject.
All of the docs I’ve spoken to sound muted, worn out, or faded. Like a beat-up copy of a copy of a copy, or like they’re just going through rote motions.
Updates during his previous two hospitalizations were random. Now they’re regimented, with a sort of morbid fluidity.
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We’re all in this pandemic together. These numb echoes of medical professionals that bounce through the network and out my phone… they’re the sounds of people who are much, much deeper than the front line.
They’re in the full thick of it, every day. I cannot imagine how tired they are, how many times they have had to say, repeatedly “it’s probably COVID, but we don’t know for sure” and I’m left wondering how many people heard that right up until they got a call where their friend or family member was just dead. If my dad’s death will just be another of the hundreds of thousands listed as “complications of COVID-19”.
That inescapable reality that has been the last year and some change, in this pandemic. Knowing it was a bigger risk for him than so many others. Knowing that progress for his condition was going to take a long time for him, stubborn as he is. Knowing that it would drag out as long as, if not longer than the pandemic itself. Making every day a bigger risk than the last one, on an exponential slope higher than most other people.
So, if I go kind of dark for a while, I’m just spending time working through that.
More likely, I’ll still do what I can to connect with folks over Twitter, Discord, and Destiny 2. Because I know I can’t do anything specific to help him right now. I couldn’t even help him when I lived in the same house as him- he didn’t want it, and wouldn’t take it. I’ve come to terms with that.
So I’ll probably be doing the same things I usually do. The things that I need to do to maintain my own mental health.
If you see me out there looking for a raid or some PVP matches, join in. You don’t have to cheer me up, or coach me through it, or offer advice. I’m becoming old hat at this sort of thing. And if I’m there, I’m already doing what I can to distract myself in between calls and emails and text chains with the family.
If you got this far, thanks for reading.
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