i don't know where to begin.  i'll try to condense a bit.  but i think this
will be longish, even though i'm going to leave out a lot.

dad had his cartoid artery surgery.  went ok.  recovered.  mom was doing ok
in the convalescent hosp.

dad also had his leg revascularization done.  complications during
surgery--bp dropped, oxygen levels dropped, heart arythmia started during
surgery and wouldn't correct itself.  2 hour surgery took 5 hours.  was in
icu for a week--they had to shock his heart there when the meds wouldn't
work.  he had a heart attack in icu.  they got him stabilized and gave him 3
pints of blood (because he was horribly anemic) and then they sent him to
the same convalescent hosp. as mom.  there, he became depressed and was in a
lot of pain.

in the meantime, my sil had to postpone her thyroid cancer/tumor surgery, in
favor of unexpectedly having to save her eyesight with eye surgery.
interior eye fluid dried, crystalized and cut macular holes in her retinas.
she's spent a week face down only, parallel to the floor and has one more
week of that to go.  she claims the worst thing about it is that she
couldn't be a backseat driver when her dh drove her to her post-op
appmt.<smile>  bless her sense of humor.

in the meantime, both my parents came down with a virus at the convalscent
hosp. while dad was recovering.  (they were in separate rooms.)  dad got
better about 5 days ago and mom improved three days after that.

yesterday, i went to costco with a girlfriend.  she's the one with the
obscure blood disease that killed her kidneys last year.  she started pd at
home about 2 weeks ago.  anyway, while at costco she experienced a lot of
pain and then nausea.  i wanted to take her to the e.r.  she wanted to go
home to bed.  she was going to drive herself home and i talked her out of
it, because she was in no condition to drive.  so, we left her car here and
i took her home.  in the meantime, my external modem went fritzie a few days
ago and totally kaput yesterday.  so, this morning i had to drop that off at
comcast to trade for a new one.

i also dropped my girlfriend's car off this morning, but she wasn't home or
didn't answer the door.   so i left her car, went home and quickly emailed
her daughter about the car, car key and about how ill she'd been the day
before.  haven't heard anything from her daughter yet and she doesn't answer
her phone.

in the meantime, i was working on getting the modem working with a tech on
my landline phone this morning when i got back.  my bil calls my cell.  dad
took a turn for the worse.  the convalescent hosp. ambulanced him to e.r.
he has pneumonia; his bp bottomed out at around 71/45 and his oxygen levels
dropped to 80%.  they sedated him and have him on life support, which is
breathing for him.  luckily, for what's occurred so far, there is only one
lung/one lobe involved.  but dad also has emphasema and has had that for
several years, non oxygen dependent (until now).  they are keeping him
sedated and on life support until they can run some tests tomorrow to find
out if they can remove it asap, because of already weakened lungs.  and they
found some yellow gunk in his lungs that they have to test.

while i've been typing this, the phone rang.  my girlfriend is in the
hospital with peritinitis.  i knew i should have taken her directly to e.r.,
but she didn't want to go and it felt like i better stay in my own lane,
unless she told me otherwise.  thank goodness davita's dietician called her
yesterday and she talked to the r.n., who told my friend to go to e.r.
before the peritinitis went systemic.  whew!

i'm tired, so i'm going to leave this update at this point.  besides, you
guys are probably exhausted from just reading this.  anyway, i'm just
checking in and letting your know that it's a bit busy around here.  take
care and know you guys are loved.

kate