My Father's continuing medical adventures

I have kept posting about the situation with my Father's medical issues to a minimum because it would be draining to do so in any frequency matching the continuous weekly developments.  I also imagine it wouldn't be much fun to read on a daily basis as tweets, blog posts, etc. Sure I have noted it in various posts as a factor in delaying or slowing work on some of our projects but details I've tried to keep to a minimum. Naturally it's more fun writing about the work we're doing and sharing it with all of you than posting about endless doctor visit tedium. That said, of course what's been going on is deeply personal and of obvious concern to me so I felt another, more substantial, update was in order.

It's been a Magical Doctor's Fun Club roller coaster ride since my Father fell and broke his arm Thanksgiving eve (which has healed up just fine). That unfortunate event led to future doctor visits discovering an irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) which, in turn, led to his admittance into the hospital for just short of a week. All considered the news from the parade of various doctors, during his time in I.C., was continually rather good. Having come through that relatively well the doctor visits continued, along with a truckload of medications including the happy fun-time drug coumadin (blood thinner). Ahh the joys of coumadin with its exciting weekly INR blood tests as part of the package. Blood thinners... making simple cuts potentially more problematic or a fall even more serious than the potential injuries you may incur, 'cause blood takes longer to coagulate being... well, thinn-erd and all.

As these doctor visits continued an ultrasound was scheduled to check my Father's kidneys for possible renal failure. This was scheduled because his blood pressure had dropped to unsafe lows (due to being put on, apparently 3 blood pressure medications which were dropped immediately thankfully). Instead of any problems with his kidneys they discovered an abdominal aortic aneurysm. This led to more exams and a CAT scan. Unfortunately it became apparent surgery was the recommendation so he's scheduled to go under the knife, next week, May 11th. Since the date was set there have been further appointments, exams, and tests including a cardiac stress test in order for him to be cleared for the surgery to occur. The good news is he passed all those exams and tests with flying colors. Prognosis, low risk for surgery so I'm hoping it all goes well.

So it's been a veritable circus of modern medicine excitement (I won't even go into the absurd bills and costs thus far or pending. I imagine anyone familiar with our super awesome health care system knows all too well). The whole thing has been rather exhausting and time consuming for me just simply playing the part of chauffeur and, more or less, care-giver (which is getting off easy as my Father has to endure all the medical issues not me). Now am I complaining? No. I'm glad I'm here to help out my Pop and he's doing better than he would otherwise for it. Sure a situation like this can be disruptive and time consuming but I'd rather my Father be doing well than worry about how much art/freelance I'm getting done. At the end of the day we're just drawing toons and robuts and cool sci stuffs while hoping to spin a good yarn around them and that can wait until time permits. Real life is far less exciting than the fictions we can create but far more important to gracefully face during situations like this.

This blog's focus is the work, ideas, and observations of this little indy studio Vulne Pro, a studio that had, and has, a lot of plans for 2011. At the moment, more important things have been commanding my time but I, and we, do not plan to quit working away on what we love to do, nor will we stop sharing the work with you. We had started some pretty cool stuff last year and much of it has been delayed or slowed due to the events laid out above. It's been difficult, though not impossible, to take on contract work because of the rather unpredictable schedule at the moment and posts have been sporadic from me personally (or more sporadic than was planned) as I can only work on stuff during moments of calm throughout this storm. I know you folks out there are more than understanding so I'm not worried, none the less I wanted to address this. There's a lot of cool stuff on the way, just sit tight. I expect things to hit a more even keel at some point in the future and work will continue to trickle out until then.

As to my Father's pending surgery, I've noted before that any positive vibes, prayers, well wishes, kind words, etc, I imagine can't hurt so if you wish to extend any, by all means please feel free. I appreciate all the support. As much as it sounds like, "holy crap dude that's a lot to deal with!" I'm pretty sure he'll come through this just fine. My outlook has been pretty positive through all this as well (save the disgust at some of the absurdity in medical costs, especially prescription drugs) as I see little point in not doing so. As overwhelming as all this may seem my Father's been coming through all of this remarkably well so my hope is the surgery, though serious, will follow suit.

My thanks for reading.

Mike