Shipping Out

I’ve been a bit quiet about this, but I spent the weekend and part of the week in El Paso with my mom and step-dad because my step-dad’s health has been deteriorating recently.

Paul is a decorated Vietnam vet, a former U.S. Army tracker, who has had chronic lung problems ever since he left Vietnam. He suspects Agent Orange.

Recently he’s had increasing problems breathing and was put on oxygen. Then he started getting these weird sickness spells. They finally did some work-ups on him and discovered several spots on his lungs, spots that thought could be cancer.

T&T and I rushed down here to be with the family while he underwent more tests. Yesterday they tried to do a biopsy of his lung, but couldn’t quite do it because one of his lungs temporarily collapsed. But the doctor was able to eyeball the growth enough to say he’s almost positive it’s not cancer.

Great news, but now they can’t get his lung to reinflate so they’re putting in a larger chest tube tonight to see if that does the trick.

We’re hoping Paul will be getting back home from the hospital tomorrow, which is when we were planning on leaving for the long drive back to Denver, but we’ll see..

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