What a long week. Saturday my brother called to tell me that my dad was in the hospital. My parents had gone to visit him on Friday. He explained that dad had severe pains in his abdomen and they had taken him to the Emergency Room. I was speechless. He went on to explain the problem. When my dad was a little boy he had some sort of surgery on his small intestines. The scar tissue from that surgery 50 some odd years ago had caused some blockage and was gangrene.

I finally was able to open my mouth and ask some questions. This happened because of something from 50 years ago? Gangrene? Do people really get gangrene in this day and age? I thought that was reserved for Civil War amputees. What is going to happen to him?

He went in to surgery Saturday and they removed about two feet of his small intestine. The surgery was a success and a full recovery was to be expected. I spent time on the phone explaining what I knew about the situation and comparing notes with my other brother and my sister and my grandmother.

I got to talk to my dad later in the week, and while I was happy to hear his voice, I also was disturbed. The man I talked to on the phone was weak, tired, and old. My dad is healthy. My dad is some I can lean on when I have a problem. I found it very disconcerting that I was calling not so he would make me feel better but so that I could help him feel better. To add to feeling of disorientation was the fact that I could not do anything. Nothing. Here I was 6 hours away. Ironically, my parents live about 5 minutes away from house. My little brother had moved far away yet he was the one right there dealing with this crisis. And here I was doing nothing.

I went on about my life this week in a daze. I am too young to have parents in the hospital. Everything in the world seemed upside down. I walked out the door Tuesday right past my gym bag with out picking it up. So much for my plan to get back to going to the gym. I did manage to get the gym Thursday and Friday. And as the week wore on, I found that I was adjusting. It is amazing the way humans adjust to change. 7 days ago my world was upside down and now its just part of my life.

Dad was released from the hospital yesterday and will probably make the drive home (Mom will do the driving) on Thursday. Life will go on. And Dad will be fine. He will be limited in his activities and diet for a while. I will be backpacking without him later this month and that stinks. But I am sure he will be ready to backpack again before too long.

It is ironic. I had expected that I would be using this space to pontificate about the Presidential Debates. Instead I did not even watch them. Oh, I had planned to, but my son was watching the 2nd X-Men Movie and even after he went to bed, I left it on. I enjoyed the movie. And I did not have the desire to observe the divisiveness and the negative rhetoric that goes with politics today. I just cannot stomach it right now. I am glad to hear that Kerry “won” the debate. I am amused that the Republican talking points say that Kerry failed to close the “Credibility Gap” — whatever that means. In the X-Men movie the government in concerned about the Mutant Problem and is considering registering the mutants. Presumably so they could rounded up and contained. Sounds a little like the Patriot Act to me, but what do I know. But I digress.

I wanted to blog about this earlier, but I could not do it. I was afraid to put concerns out there. What if something BAD happened? It would have been like a jinx. And besides I am much more comfortable with my dad was sick but he is getting better, than with my dad is sick I do not know what is going to happen. That is the real thing about this. The uncertainty. Now that things are more certain, life starts to go back normal. That Is the trick; you just need to go out there and keep on keeping on.

I am still not sure if this is an appropriate post or not. But if I cannot use the blog to sort out my feelings and thoughts, what is the point?