Charles Apple

And hopefully, this one will be the last for a while.

You’re aware, perhaps, that I was suddenly called away nine days ago to Augusta, Ga., where my dad was very ill. He went in for treatment of a bleeding ulcer, complained of chronic pain from a shoulder injury, was given medicine to treat the pain, had a reaction to that medicine and nearly died.

It was a real comedy of errors. Except it wasn’t so damn funny.

I drove through the night last Monday morning to get down here to help care for him. He spent three harrowing days in intensive care, where — believe me — we saw it all. Buy me a beer one day I’ll tell you the story about a security lockdown caused by a visitor — to another patient — who pulled a gun on an ICU nurse.

Even after Dad was moved to a regular room, we dealt with a staggering array of tests, huge amounts of “clear liquid diet” and a host of very helpful nurses and hospital staff. Even dad’s doctor turned out to be a very cute woman. Bonus!

They finally let him out late Monday afternoon. You’ve never seen anyone happier than Dad and his entire family. Here is Dad, moments after we got the news he could leave, nearly 192 hours after he checked into the emergency room for what was supposed to be a fairly routine treatment:

As his wife, Nora, and I frantically packed up all their accumulated stuff, the hospital dietician brought his dinner. Not wanting to see it go to waste, he gobbled it down while we waited:

Dad’s IV had been inserted via his neck, rather than the traditional arm location. Therefore, he was reluctant to put on a T-shirt to wear home. He wore a robe instead.

And finally, Darlene wheeled him from the 7th floor, down the elevator, through the lobby and out to the pickup zone:

I helped Nora get him settled back at home before I drove back to my sister’s house for the night. I’m eager to drive back to Virginia Beach tomorrow — Tuesday — and very, very eager to sleep in my own bed again.

Thanks again for all the kind messages you’ve sent me. My e-mail truly runneth over with kindness from you all.

I’ll be back up to usual blogging speed again soon.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 11th, 2009 at 9:45 pm and is filed under Charles Apple. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.