“they’re not working…but he’s fine…” September 10, 2008

Yeah. So, that’s what the cardiovascular surgeon said to us when he remembered to tell us about the condition of my father’s three(!) bypasses. Basically, my dad’s heart has created its own bypass by growing a huge vein from the left side of his heart to feed the right side. It’s not the ideal situation, but it’s working for now. They say he’ll be going on (more) medication to regulate his heartbeat and that a 3rd open-heart surgery is our last option after all others have failed.

He also had some laser surgery on the 14″ of blocked vein in his left leg — they got alllllll the way through to within 2mm(!) of breaking through and then…they had to stop. The vascular surgeon said they had to stop because they didn’t want to keep him in there any longer than the 4+ hours he already endured…too risky. Oh, and the last 2mm of calcification is usually very dense and hard to break through so it would take much longer to get through than the rest of it. He seemed just as frustrated as we were in hearing the news.

So now, it’s all about time and more surgeries and living more healthfully.These are the days when I wish I lived closer to my parents. It’s also a wake-up call for me…after all, I have the tendency to have all these health problems myself…yikes.

Thanks for “listening”. Your support and well-wishes have really helped a lot! I promise to post happier topics next time… :)

Choosing Family Over Work… September 4, 2008

My Dad is going in for some “minor” surgery tomorrow (an angioplasty amongst other things). I decided to come down to LA to be with my family even though the procedure is “no big deal” because…well…my family is a big deal to me.

When I found out about the surgery, I’ll be honest. I waffled. I kept thinking about all the work I needed to do…

My Tote2Go! stock is getting low, after many small shows that chipped away at my inventory…leaving me with some cute, but I’d say boring fabric choices. So having a few extra days to prepare for a show this Saturday (Seattle Tilth Harvest Fair, Sept. 6th) would have been awesome.

I’m in the middle of organizing some new happenings at EtsyRAIN — our new membership program, a big show in October even coordinating some stuff for our upcoming EtsyRAIN Zine (name to be announced soon!)…there is SO much to do. (Luckily I have a great leadership team to support me! Extra special thanks to KC!! You are awesome.)

But then…I compared everything I needed to do with the way I would feel if I chose these things over family. What if something happened? I could never forgive myself! Especially after we almost lost him in his second open-heart surgery last year. That was crazy scary.

Here’s hoping tomorrow comes and goes and I’m saying, “Yeah. That was not a big deal. Everything was fine…I probably didn’t have to be here.”

I’d much rather live with that than the alternative.