Running the gauntlet

There's a lot I'd like to record so I can remember it, but I don't have it in me right now.  We are keeping vigil with my Dad in the ICU down the street.  He is doing much, much better now--awake, stable, sitting up, talking sensibly, drinking, and eating a little.  Starting Saturday, though, none of those things were the case.  The HATED, EVIL melanoma has spread in my Dad's body, and tumor tissue in his brain caused a seizure than landed him unconscious in the ER on Saturday, just an hour after he picked us up from the airport after our TX trip.  My mom was out of town too.  (What we were all thinking while making these plans, I don't know, but all I can say is that it seemed OK at the time.)  It is so, so characteristic of my Dad that he accomplished his agenda item of retrieving us at the airport and successfully depositing us in the door of our house before he collapsed.  If you know my Dad, you know he is 100% reliable if he makes a schedule commitment.  And, he's usually 30 minutes early, too.  I mentioned this absolute consistency in his character today to him as I was trying to outline what happened on Saturday (he has no recollection of any of it), and he had to agree and smile a bit :)   We are also fully aware and need to give credit where it's due that God had his hand on all of us and protected us from a potentially very dangerous highway car wreck. 

We're now awaiting his transfer to the hospital where his oncologist practices, rather than switching to new doctors at the local hospital, where he was taken to the ER and is now in the ICU.  We'll know more about the future then, hopefully.  He's come a long way in just 3 days, from an intubated unconscious form in bed, to breathing with effort on his own again and very scramble-brained, to making sense and appearing back to himself, except for discomfort and disillusionment with being in a hospital bed, waking up to bad news seemingly out of nowhere.  This is not an easy road for any of us, and I don't think it would be honest to say that knowing God and eternal realities makes all the discomfort of these days go away.  But also, where would we be without that knowledge. 

Enough talk, need to get back to my Dad. 

Love you Dad :)