The Storm After The Calm

I felt a little guilty about going camping this weekend, but after being assured by my siblings that Loria & Ben Sr. would be entertained and in good hands off we went.
I was a little out of sorts as this is probably the first trip in a long time where I had to work a full shift. I felt like I was robbed of a half day of camping. It was nice and very appreciated that things were all set up and basically all I had to do was put my stuff in the camper and settle into a chair for a nice cold one. The weather was great and the company was good also.

On the way home I decided to check my home voice mail. Much to my dismay I found a message from my father asking me to call his cell phone. I immediately knew there was something wrong. I opted to call right away rather than wait until I got home. There is a little history is this. My brother (a.k.a. boarder brother) had had an incident on Tuesday with his leg again. He ended up in the ER but was patched up and sent home. I talked to him on Thursday and he mentioned he was feeling a little faint and very tired. I told him to call his doctor and let him know. This he did but maybe didn't stress how bad it was. On Saturday afternoon he called my parents and asked them to take him to the hospital. He was then having problems breathing. He was taken in and through ER was admitted and procedures were being done to check him for several things. On Sunday morning when my parents went back they could not wake him. This turned into Loria calling for a nurse and a lot of commotion. By the time I called Ben he said they were still working on him and he was going into ICU. I got up there about 2 hours later to find him in ICU with an oxygen mask on and tubes all over. He had some type of infection they were beginning to treat. At this point he was awake and very scared. We left there around 9 Sunday night and he was resting but in some distress. At 5:30 this morning they introbated him. They said he was setting alarms off all night because of his inability to breath. As of 3pm today they put a feeding tube in, he had no clue what was going on, and he has a serious blood infection that has spread to his entire body including his lungs. He is not in good shape and they expect his stay to be at least 4 weeks. We now have to gown up to go see him.
I was there a few hours by myself yesterday and today and sat and thought about how all this happened. We can blame it on his weight, his procrastination of things he should take care of, his depression or whatever we want. The bottom line is he needs help. Whether this comes from his families urging or himself, it's needed. I thought about what a good hearted guy he's always been, as much as a pain in the ass he can be. He'd give you the shirt off his back if you needed it. I thought about the little kid that always tagged along behind me and even though I whined about having to babysit him, I never really minded that much as he was a good kid. I though about how excited my kids would be when he'd come around. I think all he ever wanted to do was have a family. He loves his girls and does everything he can for them. He hated that his marriage ended as it made him feel like a failure.
I could say it's crappy that it takes something like this to pull a family together, but that's not really true with my family. We are pretty close knit and kick it up a notch when there is trouble. I'm not at all shocked by anyone in my family's reaction to their brother being sick, as it's the same with any one of us.
This isn't going to be easy..he has a long, tough road ahead of him in healing. We have a long tough road ahead of us in helping him. In the words of Annette "Everything always works out in the end".