Rant #2,387: Let's Do It Again

I welcome myself back to the Ranting and Raving Blog.

Friday, and actually into Saturday, was an absolutely crazy day for me, and that is why I had to take the day off from writing the blog.

And as I said, I have some pretty good news to report, and also some not so good news to report.

I guess you have to take the good with the bad, because the good is very good, the bad is bad but could be worse.

My father had some vision problems recently that had to be addressed as quickly as possible. He was seeing lines up and down one of his eyes. Think of it as looking through a window with vertical blinds open, and that is the only way I can describe it.

It had been going on for a few days, so he went to his eye doctor and they sent him to a specialist.Evidently, there was a problem with his retina, and as is becoming more common today, laser surgery was prescribed to fix the problem so he could see the right way again.

I took off mainly because I had to drive my son back and forth to work, in my father's absence, but what eventually happened made me glad that I took off and relieved him of his duties for that day.

After the specialist looked at the problem, they decided that my father had a tear in his retina, and that laser surgery was not an option. I don't know if it was the severity of the tear, my father's age (87) or some other reason, but he would have to have eye surgery right then and there to alleviate the problem, so he went under the knife on Friday afternoon.

The surgery was successful, thank goodness, and believe it or not, my father was able to drive home after it was done. That's right, with my mother in tow, he drove all the way home himself, which I cannot believe, but he did it. Once a cab driver, always a cab driver, I guess.

His eye is swollen, and he has to go back a few times to the specialist to make sure everything is fine, but he is otherwise OK, thank goodness.

Now that we supposedly have gotten through with that medical escapade, we discovered that we had another one to hurdle, but we only found out about it late Friday night.

Coincidentally on that day I had planned to meet up with friends from my old neighborhood later that day in Manhattan, and with everything OK on the homefront, I was able to do that on Friday evening.

I took the Long Island Railroad into Manhattan, met up with my friends, and had a good meal. I came home sometime around 11 p.m., and my son was watching television in the living room, which he often does to stretch out a bit from his room, where he also has a TV.

Anyway, as I was getting settled, he tells me that the back of his mouth is bothering him, that he either cracked a tooth or lost a filling all the way in the back of his mouth.

I told him that I would call his dentist on Saturday morning and try to make an emergency appointment with him for that morning, right before his last day of his bowling league for the current season.

So I did just that, but was dismayed to find out that his dentist was not open on Saturdays during the warmer months.

I had to call the emergency number that was on the message, and it was the dentist's number at home, where he directed me to another dentist, an oral surgeon who was his backup dentist for situations like this.

I called the oral surgeon, they said they would look at him, and my wife and I went with our son there, and proceeded to wait a few hours to be seen.

Near noon, they told us that he had a broken tooth, they could do nothing for him, and he would have to go to a specialist. I do not understand why an oral surgeon could not at least put a temporary crown on the tooth, but it probably has to do with the fact that my son cannot open up his mouth very widely to have any dental work done. We have had this problem in the past--it has to do with some malady both he and I have that we inherited from my maternal grandmother that affects the facial muscles--but how an oral surgeon could not do anything for him is beyond me. They did take X-rays, but that was that.

We rushed home, made the appointment with the specialist for late Tuesday afternoon, when my wife can take him, and we are biding our time until this takes place. The tooth still bothers him, but he will have to live with it until it can be worked on.

We rushed home, downed a quick lunch, went to the bowling alley, my son and his team got their trophies for a solid fifth place finish--out of 12 teams--and we came home.

That was that, and so right now, we are in a holding pattern with both my father and my son.

My father appears to be OK, and hopefully the swelling will continue to ebb and the healing process will begin. The lines he was seeing in the eye will eventually go away, too, or so the surgeon said, so let's hope that is, in fact, what happens.

My son is biding his time until his dental work can be done, and he is managing, although he is in discomfort. I can see how much he has grown up, because when he was younger, such an episode would have made him unbearable, but he is handling it now pretty well.

I guess it is just another day in my household. Everything is fine, but is just waiting to be un-fine.

What can I tell you--back to work today for more lunacy.

That is the way of the world for me, so why should today be anything different?