Waiting

To my son Tommy,

In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, "I hate waiting". Those words keep coming to mind right now, half past the middle of the night, as we wait for the transport team to transfer your Grandpa Leo from NorthWest ER to a room down in Johns Hopkins. He came in early because he had a seizure due to his brain cancer. He has stopped shaking and is starting to regain his speaking ability, which I am not sure is a good thing because with every stupid lead alarm that goes off he asks for his gun to stop the noise. He is still in and out of it when he wakes, but luckily is happily snoring away right now. He can use the rest. I am not sure but I think we are in for more of these seizure type episodes with this brain cancer. When he does wake, true to his nature, his first concern is with your Grandma Roro and your Great Grandpa Leo and your Nana Jeanne. Even at a time that he could focus on himself, he won't unless I make him.

Sadly to say, I think your Great Grandpa Leo is doing the best out of the group, and that isn't saying much. He ain't doing great by any stretch of the means but his condition is expected and less urgent than the others. Your Grandma Roro has been throwin up all day, a condition that lead her into GBMC emergency room with severe dehydration the last time it happened. I think I will have her make a doctor appointment for tomorrow, if I can figure out the logistics of getting her there. Your Nana Jeanne just had the surgery for her lumpectomy which they took most of the breast and her bowel resection. Her drain is showing some type of infection with green stuff draining. They finally found a leak today and are talking about a colostomy bag at least in the temporary to bypass the section so it can heal. She is in a bunch of pain, contact isolation, has been hardly eating, and to top it off I think I heard something about a urinary tract infection. So if you compare to your Grandpa Leo or Roro or Nana Jeanne, your Great Grandpa Leo, with your Great Uncle Kevin taking care of him, seems like he is on easy street.

Your mom pointed out something funny (funny odd not funny haha like a clown for your amusement). She pointed out that the last time she had clinicals for nursing school, she had them at St Agnes and the night before her first day there was spent in the ER for you and your ambulance trip. Tomorrow she has her first day of clinicals in this new semester, here at NorthWest hospital, and once again she spent the night before at the ER of the same hospital. Thank goodness this is her last clinical training. She had already spread herself thin between studying for exams and taking care of you and she spent the night up with Nana Jeanne before tonight's shenanigans.

Prayers are need for all my family, not only those sick but those of us trying to care for them the best we can and all those people supporting us as well. We can use all the karma, prayers, and good vibes we can. Right now, I would settle for some luck and a speedy transfer/transport team. Did I mention I hate waiting?

Sincerely with love from your dad,

Leo