Health & Stuff

So I tarried this morning. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I was totally comfortable in my bed. I put on the BBC to get some sense of the World Cup coverage. Switzerland and France and Brazil and Croatia today...

8 am came around quickly. I remember a lot of coverage of the recent Guantanamo prison suicides. I can't imagine what it would be like to be locked up without charges for 4 years. What kind of insanity is that? Hello? Due process?

Anyway, I went to the restroom and returned to my bed and noticed my phone had a missed call. It was from North Carolina, but not any number I recognized.

And then the phone started ringing. Another number I didn't recognize. This time it was associated with a message.

I heard the message. It was my mom's friend Maria asking me to call her right away.

I wondered what was happening with my mom.

I called my mom's work, she wasn't there. I said I was her daughter and the receptionist asked me to hold on and put me through to my mom's boss.

My brain was racing at this point. What was going on with my mother?

Debbie apologized and said that she understood if I wasn't doing okay. I was confused.

She offered the phone number of the hospital where my father had been admitted.

What?

Recieved a phone call from mom.

Apparently the summer cold my father's been experiencing for the past couple of days has been accompanied with chest pains.

I've been talking to my dad over the last couple of days for some emergency money to get me through pay day. And I felt so stupid after hearing he was carted to the hospital in an ambulance this morning from his doctor's office.

They placed a catheter in his chest to open up the valves. According to mami they they were closed. She said, "El hubiera muerto si no iba al hospital." (He would have been dead if he didn't go to the hospital.)

Somehow I didn't freak out at these words. I just took them as informational and snapped into rational mode.

What did she need? Who should I call?

I called my sister. I received a call from my brother's wife. I called my aunts. I called my brother -- his phone is not in service.

Damn.

Who to call next? My uncle. I called my doctor's office to reschedule my appointment til next week in case I need to travel.

I received a call from my aunt who said we shouldn't all travel to Raleigh until we know what's going on with dad.

Okay.

Breathe.

Okay.

We joked about my grandmother who's dimentia has taken to her singing and clapping and making up songs about her private parts in the hospital.

It's very funny to hear her sing over the phone. She barely remembers who I am and her Spanish has become slurred in her old age.

I told my aunt we should record it and make it a Reggaeton song. It has the lyrics of one.

She laughed and lovingly called me "Sangana." (Silly!)

That felt okay.

But essentially I feel out of my body.

I showered and talked to my dad about El Gran Combo and other salsa in my head. I also told him that he needs to be okay because I want my future children to know their grandfather. (Grant it, that's quite a few years off, but still.)

Then I did my yoga and continued talking to my dad in my head.

"Dad, wait til you see Stern Grove in August."

"I can't wait to dance with you and mami to Spanish Harlem Orchestra."

Things like that. He and I have been having these awesome conversations about everything. And I chided him yesterday for not going to the doctor for his cold since it seemed to be lasting so long.

I really wish I had known about the chest pains. I would have pushed harder for him to go in and get checked out.

I get my stubborn streak from him.