Dad's in the hospital

Well, that's a scary headline, isn't it!

Dad hasn't been feeling well at all lately, and Mom took him to the doctor on Thursday. He had some blood drawn and went home...

Well at 9:15 that night, the doctor at the hospital (where the blood is tested) called and said that Dad had to go to the emergency room immediately, so they went.

Apparently he had low sodium levels and high potassium and when they got to the hospital they took a urine sample, and found really high levels of bacteria. I found out later that postassium is the drug they use in the lethal injection and that his sodium level was 115, and people have seizures at levels under 120. I'm not sure where the high potassium levels came from, but the bacteria is left over from a bladder infection last month and the doctors blame the low sodium on alcohol abude. They are even giving him drugs to handle withdrawal, since he'll be four days with out alcohol or nicotine. They are hoping to get him into a program to deal with the alcohol, but I'm not holding out too much hope.

So Dad is pretty sick.

They are culturing the bacteria, giving him IV saline and expect that he should be ready to go home on Monday. Mom's exhausted. I'm planning to head down to Chelsea next weekend for Mom's birthday and to see how Dad's doing.

Keep him in your thoughts.

Later Days.
Alex