Sleepless In The Attic

What the hell day is it?

Anyone?

It's all become something of a blur over the last...some-odd...number of hours.
Watched Asylum of the Daleks, as planned. That was enjoyable. So enjoyable I watched it again immediately. Watched Thor, followed by Captain America - it was pretty much an evening of heroes.
Crawled to bed at midnight, but didn't turn off the light. Instead, we lay there, talking about how grim dad had been on the 3 o'clock visit.

Then the phone rang.

It is of course a truism that no good news comes by phone in the middle of the night. Just past midnight is of course by definition pretty damn close to the middle of the night, so this was pretty damn close to bad news.
It was Ma, with news from the hospital.
They'd said we should probably make our way up, because Dad had started throwing up what they called "coffee grounds" - stomach blood, to the gorily-minded.
We went. He had a temperature of 38.8, looked to be in significant distress, and was throwing up quite a bit. We spoke to a registrar, and he refused on pain of professional integrity, to be hopeful. He wasn't hopeless either - at least not exactly - but hopefulness, he said, was beyond what he could offer at the moment.

Again, the power of prayer came back to me. Ma said something of a silent prayer, and got a little hope from it. d said something of a silent prayer, and got a little hope from it.

I'm an atheist, I don't pray.

No, not even now.

I focused on the phenomenal strength and stubbornness of the man I know as dad. And got a little hope.

We went home eventually, when it became clear that after a change in antibiotics and a dose or two of painkillers and a reasonably constant flow of I/V fluids, he was calmer. And by home, I mean Ma's home. Dad's home. The home in which I did most of my not-quite-growing-up in. d and I went up to the attic which is, for now, the only spare room. And there we worried and hoped and did everything inbetween for a few more dawn-creeping hours.

Today, while in no way, shape or form being Better, Dad's a little better. A little calmer. A little more present. Looks like his most recent fever's broken, and at some points today, he's been Dad. Conscious, present, tracking and funny. Not, when all is said and done, many points. but some. We're back in the attic tonight, in case the call comes again and our family needs to scramble. It's like Blitz living, really, trying to live a normal life and waiting for the air raid siren that means running and panic and what-the-hell-now?

London tomorrow, against a large chunk of my better judgment. Here's to hope, however you find it, and to the perspective big problems give to the little ones, like Disappearing.