Recently my dad was in the hospital for an aneurysm behind his knee. Nothing all that difficult to take care of and from what we were told pretty low risk. He even was able to go home early because he was doing so well.

Almost a month after his surgery he started to have pain in his leg and was having a hard time walking. Being the strong, stubborn man that he is he let it go until he couldn’t take it anymore. My mom took him to the hospital where they found out that he had a blood clot and possible infection in his leg. Now the simple procedure turned into something much more serious. Possibly even life threatening.

Worry, fear, and concern all started to seep into every inch of my being. I wasn’t ready for this.

My dad is very important to me and he may not know it either. I look up to him and don’t know what I would ever do without him. When I’m with him I can be a kid again… I can relax and know that he’ll be there to help me, protect me, and love me unconditionally.

Call after call from my mom brought more fear and anxiety to me and it didn’t help that she was beyond stressed out and wasn’t asking all the right questions. Her worry and concern were not helping anyone in the situation.

I am not ready to lose my dad. I can not imagine it…. I don’t want to. I want to live in complete denial that he will ever get old, get sick, or even die. I don’t know what I would do without him in my life.

He was moved to another hospital, the one where the original surgery was done and the one where the vascular surgeons worked out of. There he would get the proper care and answers that we all wanted. A decision came that they were going to do surgery again to make sure what they thought may or may  not have been infection wasn’t causing trouble with the vein transplant.

In less than an hour we had our answer… it was a small infection and they cleaned it all up. But more waiting to hear back from the infection disease doctor about whether he would need to have a shot daily for infection.

Doctors are busy, I understand that. What I don’t like is waiting. Waiting when it’s my family that is worrying over what may or may not be. Worrying that there may be something wrong and that it could get worse while we sit there. So many times I wanted to scream at them! Move like you care a little more… move like you should for the amount of money you’re making. Something.

Again an answer came and my dad was to have daily shots of an antibiotic to help with the infection. This is something that my mom has to do everyday and it takes almost half an hour to do because it goes into a something that is similar to an IV and it has to be flushed first, then the antibiotic goes in slowly, and then flushed again.

I’m not ready for my dad to get old. I’m not ready for him to be sick.

He’s been out of the hospital for a couple of weeks now and is doing really well. It doesn’t stop my worry though… worry that this is just the beginning.

I’m not ready for this stage of my life.