My Daddy

As I write this, I am sitting at my dad's bedside at a hospital in my hometown of Athens, GA (Go Dawgs!). My mom took him to the ER yesterday morning because of an infection in his leg (he's a diabetic, so legs and feet are always a concern). However, while they were examining him, his pulse was double what it should be. They decided to admit him and have a cardiologist examine him.

After some tests, they've determined that his heart is "sluggish and dialated", whatever that means. The cardiologist is talking about possibly doing a heart cath or putting in a difibulator (sp?) to monitor his heart rhythms. Dad was giving my mom and I the update from the doctor and we were feeling pretty good about everything until about 10 minutes later when he laughingly remembered the cardiologist saying that he was a "candidate for sudden cardiac death." HELLLOOO! That would have been nice to know before! You would think that that particular fact would have stuck in his mind!!!

I have been very blessed in my life so far that my family has been healthy, so this is a little unsettling. The fact that it is my father makes it even more so. He has been the rock of our family my whole life. One of the doctors even called him "the patriarch of a large family" because all of us rushed to the hospital when we got the news.

This whole experience has been an unwanted reminder that my parents will not always be here and the fact that Stephen and I will be moving half a world away to Italy in the not too distant future is sobering. There may be times in the future when someone in our family is sick and we can't just drive an hour and a half to get to the hospital. While it doesn't change my call to Italy, it does make me more aware of what we'll be giving up here.

Please pray for my dad's healing. I know that our God is still a God of miracles, but I also know that our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19) and we are responsible for taking good care of our temples. I had a wake-up call earlier this year when my cholesterol and blood pressure were both high. I got serious about my health and have lost 30 lbs since then. I pray that this is a wake-up call for my dad, too. Thanks for your prayers!

Brandy