"Don't Worry!"

Don't you hate conversations that end with "Don't worry! The doctor said he'd be fine enough to go for the other invasive test he has booked in a fortnight..."

Right, so just before lunch, I got a text message from Mum telling me that Dad was going to the hospital. Now, I knew he had plans to see a cardiologist, so I figured that it was for that ... I was wrong. His heart rate is up again (135-140) at rest, which is not particularly good. He's dizzy and nauseous constantly which is related to the elevated heart rate and the arythmia. So the doctor was sending him into hospital to get monitored for a significant length of time, i.e. possibly overnight. There is also talk of sending him to a different hospital so they can stop and restart his heart. It'll apparently be 2 months before he gets an appointment with a cardiologist.

Add to this that yesterday my Mum decided that it would be fun to black out at a doctor's surgery. Well, not fun, but she did it anyway. Just took a funny turn and blacked out while at the occupational therapist. So she wasn't allowed drive home, my dad's still not allowed to drive, so a neighbour had to pick her up. Wonder what could have caused Dad's heart to revert to an elevated state?!

So with all this happening, I'm stuck here in Maynooth and worried stupid cause I can't be there and they won't hear of me coming home cause everything is "fine"! My dad may or may not be spending the night in Cavan Hospital (and incidentally may or may not get a bed - or rather may or may not be put on a trolley in the hallway cause of the current state of the hospital systems in rural Ireland). He's running the chance of having mini strokes. Again a not good thing to have happen to a man who is fast approaching 70. My mum is blacking out and feeling dizzy but is being an Irish mother about it and insisting that everything is fine.

For the first time, I am hoping that my contract ends this time instead of rolling on cause I am frantically worried about the pair of them (and they keep telling me not to which makes me worry more). Damnit why can't the bath in our place work cause I could really do with a nice hot bath and a good book...

Update

Thanks for the hugs. *Hugs f-list until f-list can't breathe*

Dad is staying in, probably until Monday. He's on booster doses of medication (digoxin - digitalis derivative) for today and tomorrow and then they'll keep monitoring him to see where his heart rate is and then work out the dosage of medication to put him on after that. If they decide to trace the root cause, he might be in longer. Course, they could leave that to the cardiologist...

He's relatively happy (he's got a bed, in Cavan that's practically a celebration in itself) and back eating. He's already tried to sweettalk nurses into smuggling Big Mac meals into him - course, none of them have yet. Although, that said, he doesn't overindulge in that sort of thing. I swear the man is 5'8 and thin as a rake.

But I'm gonna leave work early tomorrow and get the bus straight to Cavan so I can visit before visiting hours are over. Worry is curbed for a little while but it's still there. Probably will be until he gets out of hospital again and back to normal.

As an aside, my aunt, his sister, has been told, she's over her hysterics for the moment which is a good thing but we expect them to start up as soon as she sees him tomorrow. And incidentally, this time I actually mean hysterics. She's going to be a handful. She means well... but she's a tad difficult to deal with and is prone to overreactions. See, it does run in my family! *grin*