Best friend in the hospital awaiting quadruple bypass- check.
Sister’s father in law just diagnosed with terminal lung cancer- check.
Mom and dad at the ER because dad’s BP is astronomical and he had a sharp pain in his shoulder- check. Bonus points for my brother and sister, who are at my parent’s house DOWN THE FUCKING STREET, for not telling me and from me finding out from my other sister in Pittsburgh while calling to talk about her F-I-L.
The holidays are killing people.
*** Update ***
Dad’s fine (well as best as he can be). At the hospital all plugged in and they are keeping him. So that’s good news.
*** Update #2 ***
No proteins discovered, so no heart attack. They think it was just his bp meds need adjusted. Keeping him overnight and Christmas will just be delayed a day.
redshirt
Are you drinking, John?
tybee
@redshirt:
i’m taking that part over for him.
lamh36
Take a breather…calm ur nerves and either head on over to the hospital to be with ur mom and dad (if you haven’t already) I’m sure you already called ur mom anyway.
After going through Katrina and the tole it took on my family and friends, I’ve become used to thinking “hey, it cold be worse” as a way to keep calm when shit happens.
Not much you can do about your sis, FIL, except be there for ur sis and comfort.
Ur friends in the hands of the docs and hopefully he has some darn good ones, and your dad is at least at the hospital hopefully everything goes well
Sending good vibes to all ur peeps with problems and also sending some your way for a bit of peace.
Redshift
The only reasonable foreign policy response is a War on Christmas.
(Seriously, though, sorry to hear about all of that.)
PurpleGirl
That’s an awful lot of bad news at once. I hope your father will be better tonight. I hope the other people can find solace however they can. You need to calm down and wait to see what happens. I hope everything looks better in the morning.
SiubhanDuinne
I just got a phone call that put me in a vile pissy mood, and I was coming over here to bitch about it. But the stuff going on in your life renders mine completely insignificant.
I hope your sister’s f-I-l, and your dad, and your best friend, all come through their various tribulations stronger than ever. In the meantime, John, please do NOT give in to the blandishments of the Black Dog.
Love to you, especially at Christmas.
Anne Laurie
But you still have three dogs and a cat, along with a floating pool of commentors & front-pagers, who love you, John.
Best wishes for all your suffering loved ones, and here’s hoping 2016 is an improvement over this one in every possible way!
John Cole
@redshirt: Why would I do that?
lamh36
@Anne Laurie: Right.
@john….thank for the update… if ur dad’s having issues with his BP, the hospital may just be the best place for him to be…so they can monitor him closely.
Again best wishes.
Bumper
So sorry about all this. It stinks that people suffer like this. stay strong.
schrodinger's cat
Keeping my paws crossed for your dad. Keep us updated. Good luck to you sister F-I-L and your friend.
Ruckus
Maybe, just maybe your brother and sister thought Mom had called you.
Other than that I got nothing.
Good luck to your dad, sorry about sister’s FIL.
Life is a stone bitch some days, if yours is anything like mine anyway.
redshirt
@John Cole: The best answer! Continue on.
Brachiator
Hang in there. Keep friends and family close, if you can.
seaboogie
Sorry about the convergence of bad news for you when we typically gather together to stave off the the bleakness of the short, dark, cold days…these holidays are rooted in pagan rituals for a very good reason.
Maybe you’re not first on the phone-tree because everyone knows you are a tender-hearted curmudgeon who doesn’t deal with this info well?
For me, the holiday only maimed me..
I was working in my friend’s beyond delightful and charming jewelry shop where I do, and went to grab a complimentary handmade Nepalese card for a customer when I stepped on a slippery spot on the floor and my leg went sideways – the one with the bad knee that I blew out trying to push my car out of a ditch a year or so ago.
So I had to leave work early and am icing the knee down, have a bitching new cane, and already have the knee brace from the last time. Stopped for provisions on the way home at my local market and was there in time to enjoy the Christmas carols performed by this fellow who sings operatic tenor. He was about six feet away from me while I dithered over ravioli or tortelloni for Christmas dinner tomorrow (obvs. solo with such a meal choice). It was kind of a magical and luxurious, albeit a painful and gimpy sort of day.
John – the holidays don’t kill people. Wednesdays kill people. Also Monday, Tues, etc – but probably especially Saturdays. We just have a different set of expectations at this time of year when we hunker down awaiting the spring, and the renewal of life in nature that sustains us.
raven
My good friend who became my boss in July sent me this message “Metastatic Breast Cancer in lungs. Also looks like in one of my ribs and possibly an ovary. Will start chemo Jan 4 with chemo drug weekly and 2 antibody drugs every three weeks.” She worked so hard to finish her doctorate after a year delay with the first round of cancer. I was si happy for her when she got the position. Now this.
Another great friend has urethral cancer and will undergo surgery the 11 of January. He’s 77 and has a great attitude. Hope it matters.
NotMax
Cole-erized Vogon poetry.
jl
Hang in there, Cole.
So.. umm.. hope you have a happy Friday, then.
Mnemosyne
2015 just had to get its licks in. This has been a really crappy year.
Our family has a weird tradition that someone always gets sick on Christmas Day, to the point that it’s a joke now. One year, we couldn’t open our presents until 6 pm because one of my brothers was throwing up all day. Another year, my mom got to spend Christmas Day in the ER getting an IV of Benadryl because she had a nasty allergic reaction … and I had to take her back again the next day for another round. So hopefully your dad is merely borrowing our longstanding family tradition.
Mary G
That is a lot to deal with, holiday or no. Christmas just makes it worse – who wants to be in the hospital right now? @seaboogie: is right about the short, cold, dark days being a downer and requiring holidays. Hope your knee gets better fast, seaboogie!
Hang in there, John, is all I can say, and I will remember your friend, sister’s FIL and your dad in my thoughts/prayers tonight, tomorrow and onward. Cuddle up with the menagerie and take care of yourself.
CaseyL
Bad things like to happen on holidays; life is a Fellini film. Sending love and good thoughts your way for everyone.
Thanks for the update on your dad – wasn’t he in the hospital a couple/few years ago for something similar? Chest pains and a trip to the hospital, but no one could find anything wrong?
Hang in there, kiddo.
Mike J
Just rolled my bûche de noël, but haven’t frosted it yet.
Also, got on a lucky one. Came in 18 to 1. I’ve got a feeling this year’s for me and you.
Going to make choco-espresso buttercream now.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
I used to get sick nearly every Christmas as a kid. It sucked. :-(
It’s not the same, but I understand a little, I think, about the pain and frustration you’re feeling.
Sometimes bad things happen in bunches, at very inopportune times. That’s just life.
Hang in there. Sending good thoughts your way for your loved ones. We’ll be here when you want to talk about it.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Mingobat f/k/a Karen in GA
Sorry to hear about all this, John. Seems Christmas is hell-bent on sucking for a lot of us this year.
I’m glad your dad is doing okay.
quakerinabasement
That does sound like a stocking full of Cole…..err, COAL. Here’s hoping for a better day tomorrow.
Duane
El Caganer
I’m surprised you haven’t front-paged this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9jbdgZidu8
seaboogie
@Mike J:
So I guess you’ll be needing my address so you know where to send it – yes?
Genine
Sorry to hear that, John. Sending good mojo your way.
goblue72
I feels ya. Christmas 2014 was the Christmas dad wound up in the hospital for his cancer. He would come home but not for long. Christmas 2015 is the first “Christmas without Dad”. MIL is currently in the hospital with cancer. All of 2015 can indeed go fuck itself.
At least there is eggnog.
raven
Late afternoon on the Blue Ridge Parkway east of Fancy Gap.
geg6
Damn, John. Just…damn. Sending good thoughts to you and yours. Lovey says hey, big guy!
Adam L Silverman
keeping good thoughts on this end.
Bumper
This will likely be my mom’s last Christmas. She was diagnosed with terminal pancreatic cancer this summer. Spent her birthday in hospital.
So this year the entire family gathered at her house for traditional Christmas, some coming from 1500 miles away.
Now I’m sitting in hospital once again. Simple trip to doc is now an unexpected diagnosis of blood clots in both lungs. Rest of family carried on with dinner and we’re now trying to figure out how to make this last Christmas slightly less sucky for her kids and grandkids.
Svensker
Life is a big mystery and a lot of the scenes absolutely stink. Just hoping all is revealed for a happy ending in the last act.
Hope your loved ones get better, John, and that heartache and sorrow are strangers in your house.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
Cole, Happy Thoughts sent to your dad, friend and sister’s FIL. And of course to you as this is a ton of distressing news on this “holiday.” One I hate with the heat of a thousand suns.
@raven: I’m so sorry to hear about the lung mets, which I’d feared. Happy thoughts for her – extra special healing energy from here – and for your other friend.
@goblue72: I’m sorry to hear your 2015 has been so bad. The first year without is so tough. Though I admit it’s 20 without both of mine and sometimes it’s still quite a drag.
goblue72
@Bumper: Ugh. That is just horrible. So sorry to hear. Its never easy – but its doubly less easy when it happens over the holidays. Been there, done that, super suck.
Every day I tell my wife – we have to appreciate every day like its our last. She’s starting to believe me.
goblue72
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Thank you. Its my mother I worry about – I doubt she’ll ever be the same again.
seaboogie
@goblue72:
Warren Zevon in his last interview with David Letterman: “Enjoy every sandwich.”
Mnemosyne
@Bumper:
Speaking from experience, the hospital staff will do everything in their power to get her stabilized and home for at least a day or two. If she can’t be released, you won’t be the first family to have Christmas Day at the hospital.
My best advice is to try and make it as normal as possible, for whatever value of “normal” works for your family. Everyone will know or at least suspect it may be the last one and will want to do everything possible to make it a festive day for all.
Christmas was my dad’s favorite holiday so he managed to power through on sheer willpower and made it all the way to January 3 of 2013.
pat
Sending good thoughts to everyone who is dealing with the trials and tribulations that life sends. Makes my complaints about a few weeks of bronchitis seem trivial.
Listened to Mahler Resurrection Symphony tonight (CD, not a live performance.) Puts things in perspective, in a way.
Adam L Silverman
@goblue72: I thought that about mine when my Dad died. It took her a bit, but she’s had a very active and full post Dad life this past twelve years. I understand and empathize with your concern, but she’s likely tougher than you realize.
I'mNotSureWhoIWantToBeYet
@efgoldman: Don’t be hard on yourself. Every day is a new adventure for a youngster. I’m sorry your daughter and you are stressing about it. :-( Have her take some pictures and videos tomorrow, have fun with the day, then have her send it back and get something better. Grand daughter will have a great time all the same. :-)
Cheers,
Scott.
(Who has a plastic springy horse from the early 1960s in pieces in the basement – the kind that would crush fingers if one weren’t careful…)
Mike J
@seaboogie: Just finished. Before and after shots.
I’m not skilled at the frosting part. but it all tastes good.
Davebo
Didn’t think I could have a worse christmas than 2013 which I spent spreading my wife’s ashes at a farm in Holland but this comes close.
Fucking hate the holidays.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Davebo: I’m so very sorry. You’ll be in my thoughts.
Keith P
My new contribution to the War on Christmas is to reply to “Merry Xmas!” with a deadpan “My parents were murdered by the Santa Claus Killer back in 1993.” Usually gets a great reaction.
goblue72
@Davebo: Can’t imagine anything worse than that, so whatever it may be, sorry to hear.
normal liberal
John, please accept good wishes for you family and friend, and hopes that the doctors are inspired to all the right treatments. I get why you’re giving Christmas the middle finger – two years ago I did the “let’s spend Christmas Eve in the ER” thing with my mom, which is when we discovered that she really appreciated morphine. We were home by 6 am on Christmas, and she was still high.
I hope your father gets answers and treatment quickly.
srv
Well, season’s greetings to you too also, but fuck cancer too. Your dad will be ok, he survived you.
Have lost two aunts and one uncle in 3 months, and will lose another uncle before winter has peaked. They’d all had a good run, but the cousins run from ok to… will never recover – which can ultimately be laid at the feet of their parents. Try as some us might, some of their kids are trapped in the same spiral.
So focus on the next generation, you can’t fix the last two.
Ohio Mom
@Bumper: Oh dear. Can’t help thinking though of what a great gift all of you gave your mom. For weeks — months maybe — she got to enjoy the thought that everyone was planning on being together, in her honor, that people valued her so highly they were going to travel long distances. And it happened.
Holding everyone here worried about loved ones in the light.
JPL
John Good wishes to you and your family. Hopefully every thing turns out good.
JPL
Many decades ago, I started asking neighbors over for xmas eve dinner. Even though my life and residence has changed, I still continue the tradition. Old friends and new friends continue to come. Life is good.
Mai.naem.mobile
Sorry for all the bad news. Hope everything works out as well as can be expected. Sounds like you and your siblings need to plan for better communication in the future for emergencies regarding your parents. I’m guessing your brother and sister figured your mom talked to you and your mom probably thought your siblings talked to you.
Fair Economist
Cole, sorry you have so much to deal with and hope it all comes out as well as it can. Also best wishes to others going through tough times here as well.
I had my own tough Christmas 11 years back and a recent family health crisis, but you guys have me trumped. The health crisis seems to be working out reasonably well this time, at least.
JPL
Yes I put on my air conditioner today for those not convinced about global warming.. It’s off now but I’m leaving the windows open to cool off the house further.
Thanks Obama
Tom Levenson
Too much trouble for a year, much less a day or two. I’m glad your dad is doing OK. Too scary. The other news is hard, and I’m sorry it has come to pass.
Mike in NC
We had the A/C cranked up and windows opened because the wife was cooking some yummy onion and sweet potato dishes. Don’t ask the names.
Otherwise to bed early while still working off jet lag from Germany last week. I’m missing many forms of sausages available only in Bavaria. Plus the flowing beer and pretzels, of course.
seaboogie
@Mike J:
Please bear with me y’all – for a Christmas story…
When I was 13 and living in Wisconsin, my parents divorced and my Dad moved to Toronto for a job there. Several months later, my mom – who has some issues – decided that she didn’t want to raise her kids anymore, and they switched custody. So a week or so before Christmas, dad came back, hired a rental cube-van, and schlepped us kids and our cat, beds, bikes and such up to Toronto in the dead of winter just before Christmas.
All arrived in our new townhouse in suburban Toronto, Dad tried to make it nice for us – surrounded by packing boxes a couple of days before Christmas. He went out to get a Christmas tree on the 23rd, and – instead of our usual poufy Scotch Pine, he brought in a very Charlie Brown sort of tree…flat on one side, and a big gap on another. My little sister was helping to set it up and decorate and asked my Dad where to put the tree skirt – to which he replied “under the Angel’s armpits!”
We had so much fun making a new version of our family that Christmas. My 14-year-old – acting as the mom -self planned a menu of cornish hens, my mother’s cranberry relish, and a buche de noel that I learned in my french class the year before. But we were shopping on the 24th (having just arrived), so instead we had roast chicken, the last dented can of cranberry gelee, and ice cream for dessert. Everything was quite sideways from what was usual or planned – and entirely wonderful – we laughed a LOT!
Punctuation is a bit dodgy, but I am a bit loopy on meds after blowing out my knee today…
martian
I am so sorry for all your shitty news, John.
Truth is, when I saw your headline, I actually thought, “Hallelujah! Fuck Christmas!” Because I have had a hideous year and am just trying to gut it out to the finish line here without my pre-schoolers catching on to how bad things are. Condolences and solidarity for everyone else just trying to put one foot in front of the other and get through “…the most wonderful time of the yeeeaarrrr!”
Drunkenhausfrau
Brush that fabulous cat. Curl up with the 3 dogs. Breathe. We love you. Sounds sappy, but we live here with you… Which includes worrying with you, hurting with you, celebrating with you. You aren’t alone. Between the critters and us losers,you have quite the Bailey Park!
Crusty Dem
@Bumper:
So sorry, Bumper. Lost my seemingly super healthy, too young father to pancreatic cancer 7 years ago. It sucks. I wish you and yours the strength to make it through.
themann1086
Yeah, my grandfather passed away Sunday. This Christmas has sucked :(
TaMara (BHF)
Ugh. Not a good news kind of day, but glad to hear your dad is doing better. Sending everyone good thoughts.
mbss
@John Cole:
Hang in there, Cole. This year has been “fun” for me and most recently I was booted from my house so the owner could move family in, an inexperienced surfer loosed his board on me and I nearly bled out in the ocean (11 stitches), I was demoted at my job (albeit with no pay cut), I broke up with my babby 2 days ago, and to top it off, the mail-person hasn’t been delivering me anything at my new address for the past 6 weeks despite my formal requests.
I have to admit that despite these setbacks my overall picture is still looking up. These sort of accumulated, continuous losses and defeats to require a stiffening of the backbone, though.
I spoke with my Trump loving father today and he commiserated after opening the convo with a “you idiot liberals” diatribe. I told him I’ll be ok and when I’m at my nadir I look at the polls which forecast a Cruz or Trump victory and my devilish smile returns and I know the sun will shine again.
Hang in there, buddy. Cheers. Merry X-mas and all the rest.
redshirt
@mbss: At least were not in a nuclear wasteland, or in the throes of a zombie apocalypse, or any other manner of dystopia. Yet!
mbss
@redshirt:
When the inevitable occurs I’ll be ready. I’ve been practicing my moves in virtual reality and in real life on the dance floor.
redshirt
@mbss: That’s the spirit!
Sympathies on your misery. Hang in there, kitten!
mclaren
Actually most of this is pretty good news. Your Dad dodged a bullet. No heart attack, not even a mild one — that’s great. Plus, the incompetent idiot doctors got a wake-up call and figured out that they fucked up the dosage of your Dad’s blood pressure meds. That’s really good news, because usually American doctors are so ignorant and so incompetent and so arrogant that they sneer at a patient who complains about weird symptoms when the drug dosage is wrong, then the patient dies, and the ignorant incompetent arrogant American doctors shrug and mumble, “Well, medicine is a complex science, and not everything works out.” (Instead of doing their jobs properly and giving the patient the correct fucking dose of medication.)
Quadruple bypasses have a low mortality rate. 4%, John. That means a 96% chance that your friend will do fine and pull through. Imagine — your friend could’ve had pancreatic cancer. That’s a death sentence. Or stage IV astrocytoma. Nobody comes back from that.
Your sister’s father-in-law’s diagnosis is a kick in the gut. That’s just horrible. I really feel for her, and for you. Still, that’s one out of three really bad news.
So while disheartening, this is not 100% “all is lost” bad news. Compared to something like an Alzheimer’s diagnosis, in fact, except your sister’s father-in-law the rest is all pretty much “curable and inconvenient, but a very low mortality rate” news.
Suzanne
Hang in there, and much white light to all who are hurting and mourning. My family has been in a period of expansion, with my cousins and myself having kids over the last few years, so Christmases have been joyful. But it has not always been thus, and I remember how bad they suck when loss is at the forefront.
rikyrah
Glad to hear the positive about your Dad.
Sorry about your sister’s FIL.
Gemina13
John – I’m sorry. Your dad’s and your best friend’s situations will, however, work out okay; as Mclaren noted above, it sounds like (in your dad’s case) a classic example of doctoral incompetence, and your friend will probably sail through his bypass. I hope so, anyway. Sorry about your sister’s FIL, though. Cancer is a monster, and if it could be dragged out and beaten in the streets, the world would have a brand new bloodsport.
Wishing you the best. And hugs to Rosie, Lily, Thurston and Steve.
Mike in NC
We just got back from Germany where most everybody looks fairly slim and trim but they smoke those freaking “zigarretin” like you wouldn’t believe. Outside of every public lavatory they have cigarette machines like we haven’t had here in 20+ years.
Betty Cracker
Healing vibes to your friend and your father, John. Sad news about your sister’s father-in-law. We lost my husband’s father to lung cancer about a year and a half ago. It was very hard, and we miss him a lot, especially this time of year.
Betty Cracker
@Mike in NC: They’re still at it. eh? I was in Germany about 20 years ago and was also struck by how everyone smoked like chimneys.
Keith G
Allow me to be the asshole who injects a Pollyanna-ish attitude to this thread.
I and everyone I know are going to die except for those who are already dead. Some of the most spectacularly wonderful people I could have ever bumped into have infact already died and I miss them greatly. And in my belief system death means lights, out game over, nothing else.
A two decades fight against AIDS has left me bereft of financial resources and the vitality (emotional, physical, and intellectual) that I once was so fond of.
And I am alive today which, despite some apparent drawbacks, seems to me to be pretty fucking cool.
Slings and arrows of outrageous fortune? Well, they haven’t taken me out yet so fuck ’em. I’m going to find a way to enjoy today.
Satby
@Drunkenhausfrau: This. @efgoldman: and this.
I’m glad your dad is better John, and so sorry to hear about the sadness others (raven, goblue, Davebo, and Bumper) are enduring. Christmas is always bittersweet for my family, in true Irish tradition we’ve had several members pass on this day in the past. But they all had good runs and we remember them with joy. They are always with us as long as they are in our memories.
debbie
@goblue72:
I still remember the emptiness of my first Christmas without my father (1974!). My youngest brother was 8, so we all had to feign happiness and joy (my dad would have smacked us one if we hadn’t). I’m sorry for anyone who has to go through this.
SiubhanDuinne
Posted this comment upstairs a few minutes ago, but on reflection decided that it really was more appropriate in this thread!
************
Don’t like to bring down a mostly cheerful Christmas thread, but I just got my own piece of suck. My elderly cousin, who hosts holidays at her house every year (where I was heading in a couple of hours with gifts and goodies) took a very bad fall in the middle of the night, and her daughter has ended up spending the past several hours at the ER. Don’t know yet whether they’ll release her soon or keep her for a while, but regardless, there will be no Christmas dinner or gift exchange today. Hopefully just postponed until tomorrow. Bummer for Cousin Martha, who has had plenty of her own losses and trials in the past couple of years, and for the very small group of family and friends who were looking forward to celebrating together.
I guess I should have put this in John’s “Fuck Christmas” thread downstairs. Anyhow, I hope everyone has a great day, whether or not (or how) you observe it.
debbie
@SiubhanDuinne:
I hope your cousin has a quick recovery and is back up and hostessing very soon.
manyakitty
Here’s hoping for an uneventful rest of the year, and good outcomes for all who need them. Peace and love!
Nancy
There is Eric Idle singing Fuck Christmas that always plays in my head this time of year.
I think it is mortality that is getting to you and that all these rotten events happened at once, right now, so you haven’t had time to attain the perspective shown by the kind and philosophical comments above. I hope that you are able to get to your own perspective, to be stated in your own, inimitable way. And meanwhile, we can amuse ourselves by trying to say inimitable out loud, three times.
Best wishes for whatever you celebrate or don’t to all Balloon Juicers. Wishing you and your family and friends some peace and better days, John.
Zinsky
Drunk tank.
J R in WV
Well, sorry for everyone’s loss, or impending loss, or close call.
I’ve realized I’m officially old this year, I’m turning 65 day after tomorrow, had joint replacement surgery. But I’m still going strong. so far. So not all bad.
We have about quit the formal trappings of XMas, gift giving and decorating. We will say Merry Christmas in a minute with coffee as we slept late.
Much love to all, and to all a good day!
4 -from the cat,who jumped onto the keyboard. ;-)
Shell
I guess the only positive thing to be said with so much going on with everybody, is that Christmas falls right before the weekend, so theres a couple of days to play catch-up
SiubhanDuinne
@debbie:
Thank you, Debbie. She is home now and resting but all socializing has been deferred until tomorrow. Means a quiet day for me — what shall I do with it?
liberal
@Keith G: well said. Go get ’em!
Ruckus
@Satby:
My Scotch/Irish dad passed on St Pats day, 14 yrs ago. We celebrated his life by raising a glass (or more) of Irish whiskey. I was sorry to see him go but glad that he did, he had Alzheimer’s and suffered horribly for his last 10 yrs. Occasionally death isn’t the worst thing in the world.
Ursine
Hang in there, JC. Hope the day got better.
Denali
Agree with John. Not a good Christmas. Daughter was just disgnosed with cancer after a terrible two years. Won’t go into details, but she really doesn’t need this.
I know many hearts are aching these days, and my thoughts are with you.
MLC
Yep, fuck Christmas and merry-making. I am missing my dad terribly. He has only been gone six years, so time to get over losing him, right? I wish he could come back, as everything changed when he passed.
Batocchio
Sorry for the bad news and congratulations on some positive developments.
LAC
@Keith G: I am going to be equally contrary and give a big thumbs up to your post. This sentiment cannot be said enough. Seriously bless you for this and I hope your Christmas day was nice.
AndoChronic
Merry Christmas anyways, hope it gets better John.