Health Care....hearing about it is one thing, experiencing it is another

School has eaten me, which is why there has been an absence of posts, however I am getting more into the routine again, figuring my schedule out.....and I finally have time to post.

Lots has happened since then, but not much of it has been very good. We all came down with a cold, but it wasn't that bad, except for Dad. At the same time as the cold, Dad lost his voice and could barely swallow, his throat was so inflamed (or so we thought). Finally it got to the point where he couldn't eat without choking so mom took him to the doctors. They didn't like what they saw. Several days in the hospital ensued for my Dad, and Mom was there for most of it so not only as there been school to do, there have been kids to watch. Mostly we were just so worried about Dad. He's had whole teams of doctors working on him, but they still can't find the problem. Its not related to the cold we had, but it might have something to do with the stroke/dissected carotid-artery he had about 4 years ago. They scoped his esophagus yesterday and took two samples from that, but we won't have the results for 10 days....and the doctor who did it didn't see anything unusual except that his esophagus is relatively thick in the lower part. The doctors say its probably not cancer, thankfully, but we won't know for sure till we get the results back.......

Its just so frustrating to not know anything, to not be able to do anything. Dad can eat, but its hard so he has to eat all day to get enough calories (he's already lost an alarming amount of weight--but it might be due to stress as much as not enough food). So if you could keep him in your prayers. They are about the only thing that will help.

I'm very thankful for family and friends though. Everyone has been so helpful and caring and wonderful.....its helped a lot. =) So I'm just trying to trust God and find reasons to smile.....I have a strong feeling that we are going to make it through this, but that things are going to change because of it. I don't know.

What was rather funny and amazing was that last night we were watching Obama's speech on health care (which seemed to sound good, but then Obama is able to make dirt look tasty), and the one hospital he mentioned as a stereotypical "good hospital" was "Geisinger Hospital in rural PA".....the very hospital my Dad had just spent several days at. lol. We were all like "o my gosh he just said OUR hospital!"