emergency room trip/hospital stay

(the time stamp on this entry is wrong since i saved this entry earlier and planned something else for this spot. then things happened. this blog entry was finished at 2:30 a.m., thursday)

it's been such an emotional roller coaster ride these past five days, really high on friday, the weekend, and wednesday. i will get to this later this week.

but also there is a low that i will address now.

my sister called me late this afternoon shortly before i was off to my meeting. blood was coming out of dad's mouth and when he urinated, there was blood, too. it was too much for my mom and she took him in to the emergency in alice. he was weak and that's al i knew.

linda called after i'd returned to the office. things progressed for the worse. his blood pressure was at 170/105 and they were having trouble lowering it. it was dangerously close to cardiac arrest. the flow of blood from his mouth continued. things were grave.

she and arnold were headed to the hospital. robert drove off very fast. meri stayed with the kids and emma.

linda called later saying his blood pressure was stabilized down to 150. he had a urinary tract infection, low potassium and x-rays were taken of his chest area. the blood was due to the cancer. he was given much morphine and it sedated him.

linda left with mom, who was returning to stay over night. arnold and robert stayed at the hospital meanwhile.

today is hit me very hard. i know what's happening to my dad. i know he will die and the time is growing closer. he's sick. he's been in the hospital before, the er before. but tonight it was too real. after i heard what was happening, i expected the phone to ring and it would be linda or arnold telling me dad had died.

tonight i felt as if i'd lost my father.

i spoke with him tuesday when i had my day off and we chatted better than we had in a long time, in more than amonth. he sounded good. he went to the ranch also that day with my brother, something he gets a thrill still and i like that.

and then this happens. there are so many spikes and dips with my dad's cancer. i guess it's like this with many people's cancer. it just stinks. they're having such good days and then something bad happens taht nulifies everything. it doesn't seem fair. it just doesn't.

he was admitted late wednesday. so we'll see where we go from here.