Surgery

But not for my mom. For my dad. And not on his back. On his left eye.

Surgery number two, actually. Apparently his retina is lifting from where it should be, and it has to be lazered, and injected with some air bubble thing to hold the retina down in place as it heals. He has to keep his head down all day for one day, and then on and off every few hours for a week. He can’t look at a computer screen or read for two weeks, and he can’t drive until the bubble eventually dissipates (which took three weeks last time).

This wouldn’t be such a big deal (he’s had it before, it’s a pretty easy surgery to recover from and I’ve already freaked out about this once the first time it happened, so I don’t have to again, right?) except the whole my mom can’t walk, my mom can’t drive, my mom can’t cook, and she can only kinda talk. You know, the usual. And as if he wasn’t in enough pain (exacerbated by standing up a lot to help my mom with things), the whole putting-your-head-down-and-thus-not-putting-your-leg-up thing certainly doesn’t help his back feel any better.

His surgery is happening on Thursday morning. Let’s hope this one sticks, and fixes everything that the last one missed (and anything that the next one might catch). They almost did it today when he went in to get his eye checked. But now he has time to find rides – for him to the doctor’s for the surgery, for him and mom for different doctors appointments throughout the next few weeks. And of course I’ll be on duty if they need anything, even though it takes me 45 minutes to get there.

But yah, so it would be nice if all this stopped. The hospitals, the surgeries. I’d really like this to stop, if that’s okay. I don’t know how much more we can take right now.