20 Weeks And We're at the End...

Tomorrow it will be 20 weeks since my dad first got sick.  He entered the hospital 2 days later and ended up in ICU for 10 days.  He spent approximately 7 weeks after that in a "care center" before going home only to be readmitted to the hospital the day before Thanksgiving and having part of his big toe amputated in early December.  He's been home since then, but had regular treatments (5 days a week) in the hyperbaric chamber at the hospital's wound care center as well as weekly visits to see a specialized wound care physician there for additional treatment.  Today, if all goes as expected, he will have his last hyperbaric treatment and although I am sure he will continue to visit the wound care physician, I am hoping that this will finally close the book on the infection that nearly killed my father and took a major toll on my family this autumn/winter.

I wrote back in July about being part of a "sandwich" generation or of the middle age -- where I expected to be squeezed into caring from my parents and well as my son.  When I wrote that it was something that I expected down the road.  I didn't think the road would come upon me quite so quickly.  

I hope that we are at last on the end of that road.  Although he has some hearing loss from the hyperbaric treatments which will hopefully improve now that the treatments are ending, my father is doing well.  He will not be the same person he was prior to this...he is a little slower and illness ages everyone (including those who care for him).  He is still my dad; the man I know and love (and who frustrates me and vice versa).

We are 57 days away from spring.  By that time I hope he is even stronger and that my mom is too.  (This has taken its toll on her as well.  Not only was she hospitalized at Thanksgiving for several days but she has come down with the flu, despite the flu shot, and has a painful pinched nerve.)  I hope that by then they will be back into their "normal" routine.  And that by the time summer rolls around (150 days from now...not that I'm counting) things will be almost as they were in the summers previous.  (I know that some modifications will have to be made, but hopefully 95% of things will be as they were before this all began.)

So here's to the end of the road we've been traveling.  There have been lots of lumps and bumps.  Hopefully we have finally arrived at our "healthy" destination and that the next road we all traverse is much smoother.