Dad

My Dad is going in for surgery in the first week of August. I'm slightly alarmed.

I wouldn't say he's always been as fit as a Mallee bull.... well, I could have up until about six years ago, when he caught an astonishing virus that was insidious in its wounding of the pericardium - he contracted pericarditis (an inflammation of the muscle surrounding his heart) and it has affected him (for life, apparently) so that he has not been quite the fit, strong bloke I always remembered. But even so, he's pretty well downplayed its role in slowing him down. He still does far too much physical stuff than he should (I am soooo much like him in that regard that it's, literally, not funny....).

But, geez, I dunno. There's something about them getting poked and prodded around, isn't there? It's fairly major stuff (but not his heart this time, mercifully) and will see him in hospital recovering for at least a week.

They've found a lump. "A non-paying lodger in my colon," is how he put it in typical Dad-speak when he notified his children. Via email. Good old Dad (he doesn't like to use the phone and dial, for who would he call first? Email has got to be one of the best inventions for a long-distance parent!).

I don't know why, but I just don't like it. He's not old, although he's not a young man either, at 66. But it gets a bit sobering when you begin to see your parents ail.

I had no real idea. Well shut my mouth.