"How Is Your Dad?"

I thank you all for your concern, your well wishes and brachot for my father to have a swift and complete recovery. We're certainly not there yet, but thank G-d he's seemingly better than he was last week.

I wanted to give you kind people who have continued to ask, "How is your dad?" some feedback. The following is pulled from an email I wrote to Cruisin' Mom shortly after 3:00 a.m. today when I was awakened by some noise and couldn't go back to sleep for a couple of hours. What did I do? I turned to the computer, to blogging and emails, supposedly from which my "addiction" has waned. (sorry, Ezzie, I was awake just a bit earlier than you today; I headed back to sleep at 5 a.m.!)

"My father is stable but still in that hospital bed. He's in cardiac, and they took the halter monitor away from him a couple days ago. I believe he also hasn't had a seizure --grand mal or petit mal -- in two to three days, which is a good thing. Perhaps they've found the right dosage of anti-seizure meds to help control them. But it's very strong regardless, gives great memory loss and some confusion still. My dad looks better than he did early last week, but is SO WEAK. He keeps saying in Yiddish, "Ich hab nisht kein koach." I have no strength. We're hoping he'll be moved to neurology and get some rehab -- he only began sitting in a chair yesterday a couple of times, has to learn to walk again and do other things. --Physical therapy and rehabilitational therapy are both needed. My mom thinks he would need round-the-clock care should he come home. We're not yet at that stage, and I hope the hospital recognizes that fact and doesn't throw him out yet.

"Although he's more lucid, we've heard so many things come out of his mouth over these 12 days of hospitaliztion: life lessons, stories from the past, "instructions" to my mother should things not go right for him, "I love you" countless times to each of us...and among all that have been the confused moments with inappropriate questions or statements that come from nowhere, not inappropriate meaning anything lewd or crude, just lines that don't belong in a conversation at that time.

"Hard to see, as I'm sure you can understand. And his age has nothing to do with that. A well, able-minded and able-bodied man going in... suddenly changes overnight!"

And this is from a second email I wrote about an hour later to Cruisin' Mom.

"So imagine, I went to a friend's father's funeral on Wednesday, I went to another friend's father's funeral the following Tuesday...and between those two funerals, and beyond, my dad is in a hospital bed, also seriously ill.

"So honestly, it hasn't been a couple of good weeks...Guess you could figure that one out yourself."

I hope to be able to tell you about steady improvement, and that indeed my loving father, and yes, a very special person to all, will come home....soon enough.