Christmas Suxxors

Christmas is a notoriously bad time of year for my family.
OK, so this is gonna be a long post. So as not to clog up your friends list, I'm gonna put most of it in an lj-cut segment

This year is no exception. I'm at work today, busilly working my ass off. I get a call on my mobile from my Mom. Now this is strange, as she rarely calls me on the mobile. Turns out my Dad has been taken to hospital with a suspected heart attack. He has suffered from arhythmia in the past which only compounds any issues with the heart.

Now I'm 41 miles away from the hospital where they've taken him. After telling my colleagues and making a hasty exit from work, and 45 minutes later, I make it to the hospital. Find my Mum in A&E, and hear that they're still trying to make him comfortable and find out what's actually the matter with him. After some time later, we find out that the problem is a blood clot in the vessel leading to the front of his heart. What took them so long to find out the problem is that each time he was in pain from this, his heartbeat was all over the place making it hard to make a diagnosis.

Step back in time to the weekend just gone. I called Mum up to sort out what's happening for Christmas. My aunt in Toronto is in hospital at the moment with pneumonia and my uncle in South Africa is in hospital after having a growth removed from his abdomen.

Skip back a few more years, and my grandad died on 23rd December.

So yeah, pretty much explains my less than enthusiastic embrace of the holiday season.

On a slightly more upbeat note, my Mom has finally got back behind the wheel after 10 yrs. I had a bookcase I'd aquired from work, which would not fit in my car. I told my mom this, and she was almost going to say I could borrow the car, instead she says "I'll drive us up there today and pick it up", which was good, as we had a definate task to do, and all told would mean over 100 miles of driving. So safely back with bookcase and mucho shopping that my Mom needed to do. Oh, and I managed to get away without having to pay for the parking at the hospital, as the machines were bust.

And finally, we phoned up the hospital when we got back. Dad is sounding a lot better, if a bit exhausted. He'll probably have to stay in over christmas, but at least it seems we caught it early.