Monday: I get a cryptic message on my voicemail from my Dad: Sorry I haven’t called in a while, but I wanted to wait until I had more info. I didn’t check my voicemail until about midnight and at this point it is too late to call.

Tuesday: I try several times throughout the day to reach my Dad. I finally reach his wife Lois at 8:00pm. It seems he has a pinched nerve in his back that prevents him from walking. He’ll go to stand up, but fall over because he loses his balance. They are calling the Dr. and will call me back when they have more info. At midnight, I get a call that the Dr. said to go to the hospital and that’s where they are now.

Wednesday: I call the house at 7:00pm and talk to Lois and my Dad!, who was released from the hospital after the steroid shot they gave him released enough pressure to alieviate the nerve situation in his back. He sounds a little scared and/or shocked. This emotion is something Dad has never showed. Ever. It worries me.

Thursday: 6:30pm – I answer a call from Lois who tells me that Dad is back in the hospital. Apparently, when he went to get up this morning he fell because the nerve is pinched again. He managed to crawl out to his chair in the living room, where he sat until Lois came home at 2:30 or 3:00! From what Lois said, he couldn’t remember how to get a hold of her at work. So, this time they call an ambulance to take him back to the hospital. The thing is, now his heat is fibrillating. They don’t know why, but they are monitoring him and will do tests in the morning. I imagine it might be from stress. I am more worried.

Dad turned 76 this year. I don’t know what he would think about me telling everyone his medical history, so let me just say that over the past 3-4 years or so he has occasionally had some issues to deal with, but in August of last year, he got a pretty much clean bill of health…considering.

Considering how worried I am now about him, and I have a 10-12 page paper to write this evening, a done paper will just have to be good enough.

Please Dad be ok.