talk to my parents more often

Poor Dad is still lounging about in the hospital (as he sees it). This is Dad’s 3rd hip replacement and was needed to replace the hip put in 15 years ago. According to the doctors, the plastic in his artificial hip broke down and was absorbed by his tissue and at the same time broke down bone around the artificial hip. So, when he went in this time they found a hole in his pelvis the size of a grapefruit, as well as a good portion of his femur just gone. A worse-case scenario, in their words. So they had to reconstruct the missing area of his pelvis with titanium mesh and cadaver bone and then insert a rod down into the top end of his femur. A claw is attached to the rod and connected to the titanium mesh. All in all, he was under the knife for 5 hours. Much more work than anyone expected. The damage to the old hip was a result of old technology and his unyielding work ethic. He just nevers stops…until now. But even hours after the surgery and in severe pain, he still wanted to argue with the TV when they turned it on for him. Politics...

I was able to talk with him last night and he sounded good. Even in pain he still has a sense of humor. He wants to use the old damaged hip as a wind chime on the back porch…

It’ll be a long road to recovery. He won’t be able to walk at all for 5 months. Don’t know how an old Marine will be able to settle for that, but he has no choice. There’s no ramp for a wheel chair at their house and Mom will have to rein him in NOW because he’d want to build it himself. Mom is amazing, to say the least. Always strong – all my life…

Now if airfares can drop a bit, so I can see the old bugger!

pooch passed away over the weekend. Roxie was only 11 and it was unexpected. She was breathing strangely on Friday night and they found her on the couch the next morning. They’re crushed, but I’m glad I was able just listen and let them know I care.

So now that I’m more than 2k miles away, I am practicing to call my parents more often. I started to call and talk to my mom every other day, sometimes dad if he comes home early enough. It’s funny sometimes because we seem to run out of things to say. It’s mostly on my part, I guess, because there are still couple of things I am not telling yet, I don’t want them to worry. But the reality is, that’s just an excuse, they’re ALWAYS worried.

Recent email and a long phone call today. Had to thank them for the Garmin. Nice gift!

Email and call. I’m on a roll.

It was good to talk with them!

This is a goal, but much more than just a goal. I really want to stay close with the folks. They’ve always been there for me – in good times and bad. And that’s what parents do.

doing this as often as I’d like and I really want to.

So, my plan is to:

1. email once a week &
2. call every 2 weeks

They are important to me and I’d regret the lack of communication if/when I lost them.

email them almost everyday… chat every weekend and frequent calls