August 17th
One Week
     One week, 7 days, 168 hours, or 10,080 minutes. A lot can happen in that time. This time last week I had just finished having dinner with my family and was home getting the kids ready for bed. I had gotten the call that Dad was in the ER. I knew he was sick, but I had put my kids to bed feeling good about life. Feeling no true fear. Life was good, all was well.
   Today, one week later my Mom is at Walmart picking up prescriptions for meds to control my Dad's nearly unbearable pain. She is searching the grocery isles to find anything that she thinks he might could keep down. She is planning to bring him home from the hospital tonight. They walked out of the house a week ago with a normal life, the kind they have had for 39 years. Tonight they will walk back into that house with everything changed. Last week they had the weekend ahead of them, they wondered if they would go to Tennessee or work around the house for the weekend, this week they are wondering when the chemo will start and anticipating exactly what kind of cancer they are dealing with. Last week they were picking up bottled water for my Dads work bucket and tonight they are picking up Morphine. Last week they had worries about work and home projects, tonight they have worries about tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that. They now have life or death worries. Last week I rushed through my workday to get home to my kiddos, this week I pull over and cry my eyes out after every patient. What a change. It's not only a change, it feels like a shift in the universe, our universe.  Life is different.
     I know we will get up soon. I know my Dad is Superman. I know we will rally. I know what kind of people we are. I know we can do this. I know it, I know it. We just can't do it today.