Remember when the hospital almost killed my dad?

HA HA HA NO BUT SERIOUSLY, FOLKS.

The hospital almost killed my dad.

Not on purpose.

To be more specific, a staph infection tried to kill my dad. A staph infection that he picked up during his hip surgery six weeks ago. Let me back track so I can get you all up to speed for those of you not following me on Twitter.

(Oh. I’m on Twitter. Have you heard? I swore I’d never get involved with it but I did. Mainly to read Julie’s tweets because Julie? IS FREAKING HILARIOUS.)

As I posted on Thursday, my dad started having knee pain last weekend. Knee pain turned into “SHOOTIN’ PAIN DOWN MY LEG FROM DA GROIN”. This wasn’t good and in hindsight, we probably should’ve all taken him to the hospital right then and there. But my dad is a bull and didn’t really mind CRYING HIMSELF TO SLEEP IN AGONY every night and kept insisting it would get better.

On Monday, he had his regular physical therapy appointment. He told them his knee hurt and they tried to figure out what was going on. TO NO AVAIL.

On Tuesday, physical therapy was impossible. He could barely move his leg at all without grimacing in pain. My mom called the doctor for pain medication and dad got back on a heavy dose of narcotics. They scheduled an appointment with the surgeon for Thursday, the earliest available.

On Thursday, everyone was all HMMM, maybe you have an infection in your bone? We’ll do a bone scan! It takes two days but OH SORRY, it’s almost the weekend so SIT TIGHT and we’ll SEE YA MONDAY!

This is the part of the story where my rage starts bubbling because…

Knowing what I now know…

In short…

Waiting until Monday most likely would’ve killed my father.

So, A+ to the people who made THAT call!

Luckily, my mom is smart and when my father woke up with a fever on Friday, she was like SCREW MONDAY, WE ARE GOING TO THE HOSPITAL NOW. My father was begging her to take him there and that pretty much says it all. He was like PLEASE PUT ME IN A HOSPITAL BED WITH DRUGS AND TERRIBLE FOOD. PLEAAAAAAAAASE.

So she did.

He went into emergency surgery on Friday night. They cut his wound open again (DELICIOUS!) and as I posted yesterday, found an infection the size of Texas. Turns out it was not his knee at all, but the hip. It was causing radiating pain down the entire leg which is why he thought it was the knee and they thought it was the bone and HA HA TURNS OUT SOMETHING WASN’T STERILE DURING SURGERY AND WOOPS MY BAD!

Uh. Thanks, surgeon guy. APPRECIATE THAT.

In their defense (…sorta?), a staph infection usually manifests within a week or two. My dad’s showed up SIX WEEKS after surgery. This is…rare. To say the least. And no one seems to know why it happened that way. After the surgeon cut him open Friday night, he was all, I AM BAFFLED BY THIS STAPH INFECTION.

The conclusion is basically that my dad is so badass, his immune system so freakin’ rockin’ that it was beating up this infection for SIX WEEKS before it started to lose the fight. I mean, ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW? All his ‘concoctions’ full of flaxseed and pumpkin extract and acai and gogi berries and GOD KNOWS WHAT allowed his body to battle a staph infection for a MONTH AND A HALF.

Can we all just applaud? I mean, just stand up and give it up for my dad because I AM PRETTY SURE HE IS INVINCIBLE.

Sadly, staph infections kick your ass at some point no matter how strong your immune system is. And my dad eventually couldn’t fight it anymore without the help of modern medicine. As the doctors kept reminding us, staph infections are very common after surgeries but they are dangerous because of this little thing they like to do which is TRAVEL TO YOUR HEART, SHUT DOWN THE VALVES AND KILL YOU.

But don’t worry! It’s totally common.

All weekend we hung out with my dad and tried to figure out how to stop the staph infection from attacking his heart.

They put him on Vancomycin which is a toxic “last resort” antibiotic. We all felt comforted by this because everyone kept reassuring us that Vancomycin can kick anything’s ass pretty much. We waited. And waited.

His blood work came back and that’s when we found out that dad’s staph was ‘sensitive’ and ‘non-resistant’. They changed the antibiotic to something more specific and less toxic…Ancef, I think? I’m bad with names for antibiotics, WHAT CAN I SAY? I kept calling it Anthrax instead and my brother was like DUDE, there’s no hospital in the world that would put Anthrax in an IV and knowingly give it to a patient and I was like YOU DON’T KNOW THAT. IT IS POSSIBLE.

We had a few scary moments, mostly when my dad started to complain about chest pain and I felt like I was in a Grey’s Anatomy episode where everyone is all ECHOCARDIOGRAM, EKG, CHEST X-RAY and now I’m a nerd because I know what these things actually are. All of them came up negative. His chest was clear, his heart looked and sounded good, everything was okay.

Except for an open wound on his left side that was draining and an infection that wasn’t responding to the antibiotics.

EXCEPT FOR THAT, EVERYTHING WAS GREAT.

Yesterday we got the news that the antibiotics weren’t working. The doctor said they would keep the bacteria at bay for now but it wasn’t enough to kill it or prevent it from spreading. Something else had to be done.

They have decided to cut my dad open again today at 4 pm.

This makes surgery #3.

From what I understand, they are going to go in and insert a piece of cement soaked in antibiotic.

Is it just me or does it sound like some jerk just MADE THAT UP ON THE SPOT?

“Hmmm…well we need something we can just stick in there. How about a piece of plastic? No, no, plastic isn’t good. OH I KNOW! WHAT ABOUT A BLOCK OF CEMENT? Oh yeah, yeah! Let’s do that! Let’s put a brick in his hip! See if it works! THIS IS FUN.”

My mother assures me that this is a routine procedure. My brother looked it up on some orthopedic website and said it was a well-known thing. I stand by my opinion that the doctor has no idea what he’s doing and he’s putting a piece of chimney in my father and how can you soak a piece of cement in antibiotic anyway? ARE YOU PUTTING ANTHRAX IN MY DAD AGAIN? Oh my God.

The good news is that this cement soaked in antibiotic is supposed to clear up the infection.

The bad news is that it might not work.

The other bad news is that it will be in his hip joint for three months.

When three months is up, they will take it out.

And then they will go in and re-do the entire hip surgery all over again.

This time with a new piece of titanium hip that has been, like, sterilized and shit.

So, okay. My father is alive. We have every reason to believe this cement thing in his hip will cure him.

But can we just talk about how, because of a hospital mistake, my father will now have to spend the next six months recuperating?

And did I tell you that at the six week mark, right before the staph infection appeared, my father was walking without his cane? And driving? And that the physical therapists were BLOWN AWAY by his recovery?

But oh ho ho! Just kidding about recovery! MAYBE YOU CAN WALK AGAIN IN NOVEMBER!

I’d like to point out that I am the only one who seems annoyed by this.

My dad?

Humbling me with his grace and ferocious spirit.

Told me on the phone last night that “YOU GOTTA KEEP THINKIN’ POSITIVE. OR ELSE, WHY BOTHA THINKIN’?”

Are you…serious?

He doesn’t care about the cement block in his hip.

He doesn’t care about learning to walk again.

He doesn’t care about missing his niece’s wedding in Italy in July, a trip we were all supposed to take together.

He doesn’t care about not being able to garden or walk up steps or walk at all.

He’s just happy to be in a hospital, breathing and talking and alive.

I could learn a thing or two from this man.

Or ten freaking million things.

So, I will shut up now about hospital error and six months of recovery and ANTHRAX IN MY DAD’S IV OH MY GOD YOU GUYS WE ARE ALL GOING TO DIE.

For now, my dad is safe. He is well taken care of. He goes under the knife at 4 pm today. All I can do is sit and wait. All I can do is send him my love until he can feel it. All I can do is bow my head and fall to my knees and thank God for one more day with my father in my life, one more day to watch him slurp soup from a spoon with a loud relaxing AHHHHHHHHHHHH after each bite, one more day to hear LAWRAAA on the other end of the phone, one more day where HE tells ME to think positive, that it’s all going to be okay, one more day to be thankful that he is Superman, he is Untouchable, he is My Dad.