I realize I haven't been around much on the forums or even in-game, so I thought I'd give you a little update on what has been happening recently in my life.
I'm not sure if Washington or California use the same system we do, but in Oregon all colleges run on a quarter system instead of a semester, unless you go to a private institution which does semesters as well. I go to Oregon State, so we have four terms a year instead of the usual three I think most are familiar with. Finals week was finished up last week, and we start fresh again after our spring break (this week).
Aside from that, Thursday morning of last week, my dad was taken to the hospital after he had fallen out of bed after having what they thought was a stroke. After I had reached the hospital, a doctor took us into a small room and explained to us that there had been some bleeding in his brain and it was likely that he wouldn't wake up from it at all. After we were allowed to see him (there were only four of us there at the time), the neurosurgeon explained the catscan he had and what have might caused the problem, but then went on to tell us that he had woken up and responded to commands like raising his hand, nodding his head, and gave direct eye contant on both sides of his body. She advised us that he should be taken to OHSU (he was at a smaller faculity) because it could have been a stroke or another very rare problem.
Turns out, it happened to be this one rare problem, and apparently it's a malformation in the brain at birth, so this could have happened at any time during his life and it had finally broken. There is little pressure in the capillaries in your brain (and probably all around your body, I'm not a doctor!
) and somehow a vein had been connected to one and was forcing constant pressure on this small capillary which caused it to break. He was supposed to go into surgery tomorrow (Monday) after spending the weekend in the hospital in order for his body to get over the intial shock, but unfortunately there was another rupture and he was rushed to surgery immediately the day after.
The surgery went very nicely and what would have been a five hour ordeal turned into about two and a half because he had responded so well. Since then, he's been resting in the ICU and given pain medication because he's very tense in response to all the tubes he's been having to deal with.
Not out of the woods yet, though. He hasn't responded to anything outside the realm of a reflex, so they're not sure whether or not there is any brain activity aside from that. They had taken him off his pain medication last night (which was sedating him also) to see if they could get him to respond to whatever it is they feel he should be doing at this time. This morning he had either another catscan or some other test to determine maybe why he isn't responding... and I can only hope that it's still just the medication.
For some reason, I feel like I'm just asking for attention by posting this, but since I consider all of you my friends no matter how little we've talked on the game or in these forums, I felt almost like I needed to say something since that bond is there. I also really appreciate the support I've been getting from some of you who I've already told and I apologize for not telling the rest of you sooner. I might not be around the game or forums for a while considering the circumstances, so I wanted to let the static know in advance on why and not force Tenka or BB to tell everyone in the first place.
Sorry for the book.. and don't kill me with typos! I'm really bad at proofreading sometimes. Which reminds me, isn't that terrible considering I'd like to be an English teacher? lol
I hope you're all doing well, and the best thing now is be hopeful and optimistic.
