Seeing is Believing

The Austins road tripped Up North yesterday to check in on my folks and, naturally, buy a Powerball ticket in Luck. (I have a feeling you know how the second part turned out! Dang.)

The first part (the visit) didn't make me feel much better either.

What we wanted to know and see is how bad my dad is really doing health wise. I guess a small part of me couldn't grasp that he is still suffering from Shingles pain 10 months after onset. I had to see it to believe it.

And it wasn't pretty.

In a nutshell, Dad still gets sudden sharp pains in his back and he cries out in pain. It is so startling, it never failed to take me by surprise. I can see that my mom has her hands full trying to take care of him and ease his pain -- with ice packs, medication, massage, lotions, anything and everything. So we tried to let her relax and play some cards with Carter and we did some stuff around the house she hasn't had time or energy to do.

It was good we had Carter with us. He does wonders for making my parents feel good. I really appreciate that about him. Unfortunately, Grandpa wasn't up to playing cards with them but, you know my dad, he definitely "coached" from his chair and kept the table talk going!

One task I wanted to accomplish was cutting Dad's hair. But that proved too difficult. You don't want someone making sudden movements when you have a scissors in your hand. Either he gets hurt -- or he finds himself missing a huge chunk of hair. I had to work fast. So he got a slight trim and that was good enough.

The whole thing was just tough to absorb. I am glad we went but pretty disheartened about it. I am relieved we stayed at my sister Romey's house so we got some levity added to the weekend.

After supper last night, we said farewells to Mom and Dad and drove up to Romey's. My twin sister and her daughter were there, too. Had a nice visit and just relaxed and talked and enjoyed some time around the campfire, too. It was much needed!

This morning, we had a "redneck demonstration" from my nephew Eric, who has a hobby of blowing up things. Oh my gosh, did Carter get a kick out of that! He was videoing on his iPod and couldn't get over it. He has a new hero as far as live entertainment goes, that's for sure. I just hope Eric told him: "Do not try this at home!"

We got home around 4 p.m. and Carter went to the last baseball game of the season for the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters. I did laundry and worked out and caught a little of the Olympics Closing Ceremony. That's a bummer those are over already. It was a nice distraction from reality.

And after this weekend, I could use that. Sigh...