My dad just called with the latest news on the condition of my grandfather. Since we spoke on Monday the situation has changed yet again and now my grandfather is going in for surgery tomorrow -- the doctors are going to do some sort of crazy Roto-Rooter procedure on his urinary tract. I don't know all the details and (speaking as a male of the species) I probably don't want to know. The upshot of it is that they're going to open him up, then go in and try to clear the clogs that have made their homes in his water works. There is little doubt in my mind that it's going to suck but it's still better than living out the rest of his life with a catheter and a bag, right?

After all that is done he will be given a few weeks to recover from the procedure. I guess he's going to need it... the plan as it stands now is that after he's all healed up he'll go back under the knife one more time. Doctors are fickle creatures and one of the team that's working my grandfather's case has pulled a one-eighty on his opinion. This morning the cardiologist had a long talk with my mother and apparently made a good case for a pacemaker -- it seems that some of Schep's confusion could be due to a lack of oxygen. As I am lead to understand my grandfather's irregular heartbeat isn't the doctor's primary concern. I guess now the issue is that my grandfather's heart has periods where it slows down so much that there's not enough oxygen getting up to his brain. At eighty-nine years old, can anyone really say they're surprised by this? Regardless, these bouts of "lazy heart" make him suddenly grow very tired and irritable. In the more extreme prolonged periods he becomes irrational and very confused. Those extreme periods have been more frequent in the last half-decade and it's clearly taken a very large toll on my mother, my father and my grandfather's relationships (not to mention their mental states). I know that all three of them would like for him to be as clear-headed and self-reliant as he was even six years ago. In light of that, I cannot help but think that perhaps this pacemaker is a good thing.

The sun always shines on TV

Tags: family, grandfather, health
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