Thankful

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Just a week after moving into our house, I got a scary phone call that my dad was in the hospital. He had an acute case of diverticulitis that had gotten to a dangerous stage and was hospitalized for several days until the doctors felt he was stable and beyond risk for infection. That first day, before we knew how bad things were going to be, I was so grateful that Bob* could take most of the day off and I was able to spend the afternoon with dad and mom. It was so much better than getting updates over the phone -which would have been the case if we were still in Oregon. And that is precisely why we came back. To be closer for the good and the bad times. I felt relief seeing that my dad still had his sense of humor and was able to joke around (although I could tell he was in a lot of pain). I also enjoyed going to lunch with my mom and visiting over Subways.

Unfortunately, the hospitalization forced my dad to miss the much anticipated home "blackout" game with TCU. I decided to come watch some of the game with him at the hospital to cheer him up. He had his Shakey "mask" above and all kinds of U of U paraphernalia in his room. Unfortunately, it was the worst game of the season for the Utes up until that point. Well, there was only so much cheering up I could do after that game. But at least he had someone to mope with.

From Blog Favorites Sept.Oct.

Later in the week, we all came for a visit. The girls were very worried about grandpa too and were so happy to get to see that he was okay. We were all feeling very thankful that dad was okay and that we were close enough to visit him as much as we wanted. Love you dad.

The amazing thing was that the next week, dad was able to go on his much anticipated trip to the U of U vs. Notre Dame game in Indiana that he and my mom had planned months before. When he first realized how serious his condition was, I think he was more worried about missing that game than anything else. (o: Happily, he got to go . . . Sadly, it ended up being a terrible game.

But that's not what matters most. I still feel very thankful.