Happy New Year

So. My 2014 started off with a bang.
New Years Day we drove to Kentucky to visit my parents and our friends. Saturday we were headed to cinci for a college friends wedding, and Sunday we were headed back to Charlotte. But those plans were scraped because:

My dad was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia.

The day after Mike and I arrived (Thursday), when dad came home from his adult day care, he was moving incredibly slow, barely had any coordination and balance, and he was trembling all over and leaning heavily towards his right side. I hoped that it was just his blood sugar being low due to his diabetes, but the shaking and leaning had me so scared that I feared this was something far worse (a stroke). Dad has lost most of his ability to talk, so even if he did know and could describe what was wrong, he couldn't even tell us anyway. With his doctor's office closed for the evening and the doctor on call being busy when my mom called, Mike and I exchanged and look and decided we were taking him to the ER now.

With a lot of difficulty we got him in the car and with even more difficulty we got him out of it. Dad was like a rag doll at this point, so it took all 3 of us to move him from the car, and even then if it wasn't for the help of a good Samaritan, he would have collapsed on me and than both of us would have been hurt. He was checked in and taken back to an exam room pretty quickly, and then we waited. (Turns out I went to elementary school with the ER admitting tech. She couldn't remember if I was the older or younger one (older), but she did remember that one of us sucked our thumb for a really long time (that was totally my sister).) Eventually from all the tests, blood draws and other hospital stuff, the doctor diagnosed a clear case of pneumonia.

He was given antibiotics and admitted for treatment after that, but he would have to stay in the hospital for at least a few days. And you know, it never occurred to me he would be admitted. Even though pretty much anything with the exception of low blood sugar would probably require hospitalization, it didn't even cross my mind he would have to stay in the hospital for some reason. Mike said that was due to being in crisis mode, we were so focused on finding out what was wrong that we couldn't fathom anything past that point.

I could go on and give more details about the rest of our visit, but frankly I'm so tired and I'll finish up the rest of the story tomorrow. But my dad is recovering very well and he can leave the hospital tomorrow! Yes we were in crisis mode, but all things considered, it was a manageable crisis and it put mom, my sister and I on the same page of dad's care, which is something we have never had before.

So yeah, my dad certainly started 2014 with a bang.

Update 1/10/14:
Dad went home on Wednesday the 8th and he's doing very well. There really isn't much more of the story anyway. We spent the next few days rotating shifts and staying overnight with dad. We decided to not go to the wedding and missed seeing my college friends, but everyone understood and we did get a little more time to see our Lexington friends. And my mom finally, finally has started accepting help with my dad's care. So I'll reiterate that while this was a crisis and really scary, all things considered, things are going to be ok.