We've been through the proverbial ringer over the past 36 hours or so...Mark's dad is in the hospital, in the Coronary Care Unit of KGH. He was admitted last night after 9 hours in the emergency room. He'd been complaining of back and chest pain on Sunday and Monday but when I talked to him about it, we sort of thought that it might have been his arthritis acting up due to the change in the weather. What had actually happened (and what his GP picked up on during a regular visit on Tuesday morning -- thank goodness!) was way more than arthritis. The pain was caused by an ulcerated aorta. When the aorta tore, he was awakened by the pain and he was in discomfort from it afterwards because the dissection (or tear) was moving. They have in the CCU so that they can monitor where the dissection is and keep an eye on his blood pressure.

Potentially, this can be a life threatening thing but the odds are in Joe's favour. Ordinarily they are able to treat this sort of thing medically. In about 5% of cases, they have to have surgery. It's looking like he won't have to exercise that option but he does have to stay in the hospital until at least Sunday or Monday. Last night I don't think I slept for more than an hour at a time. Top it off with the fact that we're moving offices at work, tomorrow, and you can pretty much imagine what my week's been like. Yikes. I'm not sure when I'll get to post again. We're having an early night tonight, I'm just puttering on the computer and Mark's on the phone. It feels weird to be doing normal stuff when Joe's in the hospital and I'd probably feel worse about being home if I didn't know that he's loving the attention and is giving the nurses a good natured hard time. I swear that we feel a lot worse about things than he does. I don't mind though, I just want him to be up and around and back home soon.