Back at mon Pere's home base in Madison County... Headed out of Omaha at an hour much later than what I'd originally hoped for, especially since I was the git driving. Maybe I should, time and parental absence allowing, catch everyone up on the trip so far...
I arrived in town on Monday at 4pm, by Tuesday at 4pm I was in the Des Moines ER holding jackets as my step-mother was checking my dad in... He'd been complaining of unusual heartburn after a meatball sandwich for lunch prior to my airport pickup. By Tuesday morning, he thought it worth making a doctor's appt about seeing how we'd be in town anyhow. The doctor thanked him for his cautious thinking by having his attendant wheel him to the hospital next door. The attending ER cardiologist compared the wonky EKG w/ the one taken from the physician a half-hour prior. They recommended an immediate angiogram (ie pictures of x-rayable dye circulating through your heart injected via a catheter in the crouch).
Now, good news and bad news...okay, only good news.
His heart checked out just fine. He has no blockages at all, let alone anything that could possibly trigger a heartattack. The wonky EKG was just that, an eye brow raising condition of his heart that will probably require him carrying around another medical alert bracelet. My dad stayed overnight for observation and was checked out the next afternoon.
The after effects of this hasn't appeared in the form of medical complications or complexities sent home from the hsopital. They've appeared as the doubling of my step-mother nagging my dad about everything, every waking second.
I've gone from house guest to pre-emptive helper monkey. 
Dad tore a rotator cuff last winter and has yet to heal well. The combination of this, high-blood pressure, mild cholestorol issues and now a trip to the ER, there is no rest without reminding the poor old man that he's not allowed to do anything, and whatever it was, that was even being considered, was being gone about totally wrong. I feel bad so, for as distant and disengaged I feel about him, I'm trying to make my stay about catching-up and having fun by some measure.
In other vacation news, Thanksgiving was pretty painless... There were two amusing constants: 1) Relatives leave you alone if you are a wizard in the kitchen, especially in cooking a 1/3 or more of Thanksgiving dinner.
My iPod was piping in the new Gillian Welch album as I popped about tearing primeordial ingredients apart, having the technology to make them faster, stronger, and clean up after myself. It seems they don't have skills like that in Nebraska.
2) It seems AlienPrincess and myself are engaged. OMG!!! REALLY!? No, not really.
A random forgetful family member *coughstep-momcough* dropped this rumor to somebody and it spread like telephone game wildfire! Every extended family member initiated conversation by explaining how they'd heard the good news. "There was a re-count in Ohio?" No, how I was engaged. I spent much of the later Merlot-buzzed hours being playfully mean and taking advantage of others' poor intel.
Well, I reckon that may well might have caught me up, at least until Monday or Tuesday (when I get back to New Haven)... I hope you all are amazingly well and happier for it. I've missed all of the regular faces and look forward to catching up with everyone proper. The only things preventing me from properly doing so are a remarkably conservative mid-western family and a 40k connection.
TTFN.
I arrived in town on Monday at 4pm, by Tuesday at 4pm I was in the Des Moines ER holding jackets as my step-mother was checking my dad in... He'd been complaining of unusual heartburn after a meatball sandwich for lunch prior to my airport pickup. By Tuesday morning, he thought it worth making a doctor's appt about seeing how we'd be in town anyhow. The doctor thanked him for his cautious thinking by having his attendant wheel him to the hospital next door. The attending ER cardiologist compared the wonky EKG w/ the one taken from the physician a half-hour prior. They recommended an immediate angiogram (ie pictures of x-rayable dye circulating through your heart injected via a catheter in the crouch).
Now, good news and bad news...okay, only good news.
His heart checked out just fine. He has no blockages at all, let alone anything that could possibly trigger a heartattack. The wonky EKG was just that, an eye brow raising condition of his heart that will probably require him carrying around another medical alert bracelet. My dad stayed overnight for observation and was checked out the next afternoon.
The after effects of this hasn't appeared in the form of medical complications or complexities sent home from the hsopital. They've appeared as the doubling of my step-mother nagging my dad about everything, every waking second.
I've gone from house guest to pre-emptive helper monkey. Dad tore a rotator cuff last winter and has yet to heal well. The combination of this, high-blood pressure, mild cholestorol issues and now a trip to the ER, there is no rest without reminding the poor old man that he's not allowed to do anything, and whatever it was, that was even being considered, was being gone about totally wrong. I feel bad so, for as distant and disengaged I feel about him, I'm trying to make my stay about catching-up and having fun by some measure.
In other vacation news, Thanksgiving was pretty painless... There were two amusing constants: 1) Relatives leave you alone if you are a wizard in the kitchen, especially in cooking a 1/3 or more of Thanksgiving dinner.
My iPod was piping in the new Gillian Welch album as I popped about tearing primeordial ingredients apart, having the technology to make them faster, stronger, and clean up after myself. It seems they don't have skills like that in Nebraska.
2) It seems AlienPrincess and myself are engaged. OMG!!! REALLY!? No, not really.
A random forgetful family member *coughstep-momcough* dropped this rumor to somebody and it spread like telephone game wildfire! Every extended family member initiated conversation by explaining how they'd heard the good news. "There was a re-count in Ohio?" No, how I was engaged. I spent much of the later Merlot-buzzed hours being playfully mean and taking advantage of others' poor intel.
Well, I reckon that may well might have caught me up, at least until Monday or Tuesday (when I get back to New Haven)... I hope you all are amazingly well and happier for it. I've missed all of the regular faces and look forward to catching up with everyone proper. The only things preventing me from properly doing so are a remarkably conservative mid-western family and a 40k connection.
TTFN.VIEW 8 of 8 COMMENTS
so, get engaged, already! it's all the rage!!!