boing's useless info of the day:
i love paul f tompkins
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surgery for pops.
today my dad had surgery on his brain stem & spinal cord to find out if he had cancer. they drilled holes into the side of his head & put a metal helmet on him so when they cut the mass out, he wouldn't jerk & mess the surgeon up. obviously, if there is something touching your spinal cord, you convulse without meaning to. so precautions were taken.
this type of surgery is very risky but my dad pulled through just fine. i was there before he went back to pre-op & i was there when he was done. i guess i can't really explain my relationship with my dad very well, to complete strangers, i mean. i love him dearly, but he is with a woman that i despise. therefore i don't see him very often.
but seeing my dad lying on that bed, weak & totally out of it, changed me. i'm going to put my feelings towards her aside & be a better daughter. i'm sorry that it took something this serious to shed light on things.
the surgeon doesn't think the mass is cancerous but they're sending it to the lab to be sure. i'm not worried about cancer right now. everyone seems to think he's in the clear.
now to talk about something that bothered me. it's still bothering me, honestly. my dad got out of surgery & not 45 minutes later, did his wife go home to change clothes & contact people to let them know he was ok. with no plans of coming back! not even for when he was released. i told her i would stay at the hospital with dad because nobody likes to be in that place alone, you know? i don't understand why she would feel comfortable leaving him there so soon after surgery. he wasn't even sane yet. he could mumble & form words, but he was visibly still heavily medicated. the doctors had my dad on steroids to see if that would alleviate some of his pain prior to the surgery, and 3 days ago, they had started to wean him off - he was still messed up from that! not to mention all the meds they used to put him under.
i wouldn't leave my husband alone like that. i wouldn't leave anyone alone like that. right after surgery you're way fragile & can still have complications. she's not even spending the night up there. that's a fucking bitch thing for her to do.
but i'm glad my dad is okay. he's a good man & i love him.
10:32 p.m. - 2001-07-18
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