I just realized that while I posted an earlier entry “from the ICU” (well, composed at the ICU, and sent from Starbucks), I totally forgot to mention in my last post that I’ve since returned to San Francisco. Towards the end of the first week, my brothers and I decided to split our time in Florida into shifts, since we realized that my dad could be in hospital there for quite some time, and we all had lives and jobs to attend to back home. So, after a quick review of our calendars, Eddy and I flew back home, while Rammy stayed on for a second week – the “first week” of the rotation. Eddy just flew down for the second week (and Rammy flew back to Toronto on the same plane), and I’ll probably catch a red-eye on Friday night (February 20th) to arrive in Florida again on the 21st. The main thing is that at all times at least one of us is there looking after our mom (who, aside from being understandably worried, is also recovering from bronchitis) and staying close to our dad, and feeding the rest of us updates from the doctors and nurses.

Speaking of which, Eddy told me this afternoon that they had already drained almost a liter of fluid from the area around my dad’s pancreas, and that things were going well in that regard. They also stepped his ventilator down from 14 to 4 bpm, in an attempt to wean him off it. It seems that may have been too much too soon, and they ended up stepping him back up from 4 to 8 bpm. This is still good news to my ears, since it means that someone was confident enough in his recovery to begin trying to wean him off the ventilator. And we’re all eager to see that thing come out – aside from being painful and scary, it’s a huge mental milestone on the road of recovery, and it also means dad will (eventually) be able to speak to us again for the first time since this all started.

So, I’m still trying to be patient, and optimistic. All the messages from friends have really helped – thanks again. Special thanks to Reb, who also sent me cute links to cheer me up and distract me… I thought of Reb (and Montreal) tonight while watching Les Invasions Barbares (the new Denys Arcand film) with Emylene. A very good film, with more than a few shots of Montreal. Unfortunately, since it’s about an estranged son flying back to Montreal (from London) to take care of his dying father, it didn’t exactly offer me much distraction from the present state of affairs.

On a return-the-favor tip, I’m pushing some good vibes out to Arnon, who’s been going through a weird headache thing lately, not to mention some really painful (read: extracting spinal fluid) procedures involved in just having himself checked out. I hope your headaches are history, and that the nice doctors can leave all your spine-juice where it is from here on out.