bad things, good people

In the continuing saga of family health crises, car woe and appliance death, I offer up the past couple of days.

Saturday, for example, while downtown enjoying the nice weather with Jeff, I started experiencing trouble with the convertible top, which kept reporting an error when I tried to open it. I did eventually get it open, and got it closed again once home that evening, but it's been sluggish and recalcitrant since, so I've been afraid to try to open it.

Then I arrived home from work yesterday to discover that the heat pump that provides cooling and heating in my condo apparently has given up the ghost (after having been preceded by the refrigerator, dishwasher and computer monitor, in a race with the widescreen TV to see which would fail next). Given its age (about 20 years) I've been expecting this sooner or later, but I kept hoping for later. Fortunately it failed just as the weather has begun to cool, and I don't need its air conditioning or heat for the foreseeable future.

But as I was feeling sorry for myself about the state and presumed cost of repair or replacement of what are, after all, only just things, I got a real kick in the pants when my mom called last night to tell me that my dad was back in the hospital, just a few days before his 65th birthday and the same morning that my cousin and aunt both had outpatient surgery.

Yesterday morning Dad began to lose feeling in his legs; fearing at first that he had had or was having a stroke, he was admitted to the hospital. The progression of his symptoms, though, led to a diagnosis later that day of Guillain-Barr� Syndrome, an autoimmune disorder whose primary presentation is a rapid onset of weakness and paralysis beginning in the lower extremities and working its way up, often resulting in temporary paralysis of the breathing muscles requiring use of a mechanical ventilator.

Today at the request of his transplant doctor, he's been transported by helicopter to Richmond. Dad's sister is driving Mom there this afternoon, where they'll find a hotel room for the time being, but my aunt has to return home tomorrow. Since my Mom's sister, who shares much of the responsibility with my mom for caring for their own mother, who has Alzheimer's, is recovering from her own laparoscopic surgery from yesterday, my sister--as usual--is stepping up to help care for our grandmother while also taking care of her own family. So I'm taking the rest of the week off (ah well, there goes the rest of my leave; and my parents, sadly, now have to cancel their first cross-country trip) and driving down to Richmond tomorrow morning to be with my mom so she won't be alone there.

Happy, healing thoughts for my dad are appreciated. As are virtual hugs for me, too.