End of summer, happy & sad

Okay, so I am going to admit that I lied in my last blog.  Actually, I think it was more of an attempt to remain positive and optimistic, but the events of the week unfolded in such a way that it was pretty much a big, fat lie.  Here's the real story.

Every summer we go up to the Catskills to stay in the cottage that Matt's parents have had since before Matt was even born.  It's a total of about 300 square feet, and it is adorable and tiny and perfect for sunny, summer days when you can swim and run around outdoors all day, grill out for dinner and then collapse in bed at night after a serious round of Go Fish or a stab at the Sunday Times crossword puzzle.  We were at the lake, and we were having fun.  After a rainy first weekend (but still fun as we were hanging out with Matt's sister, her boyfriend, and Grandma and Grandpa), the sun came out on Monday and we were excited to get down to business fishing, swimming, hiking around and the like.  Sadly, by Monday evening Matt's dad was in the local hospital with what we thought were kidney stones.  On Tuesday, he was diagnosed with Pancreatitis, but then on Wednesday, it turned out that they had given him the diagnosis of another patient in the hospital, and he did not in fact have Pancreatitis, but they didn't know what was wrong.  I wrote that last blog on Wednesday, I think, and I was hoping that things were about to turn around for Grandpa and we would all be back to relaxing at the lake, with Grandpa on grill duty and Matt catching frogs with the boys.

On Thursday, they decided to move Matt's dad to another hospital that was outfitted with actual medical doctors and machines of modern medicine in an effort to figure out the problem.  There, he was told that the back pain that was making it unable for him to walk was a spasm, but, also, he had diabetes.  The next day, however, it turned out that the diabetes also belonged to another patient, so we were happy that he had beaten two diseases in the course of the week.  Hello?  Is it so hard to match the patient with the piece of paper that says what is wrong with him?  And did I mention that there were only 8 patients in the first hospital?

Anyway, by Saturday his back was feeling better, but he still couldn't go home as they were waiting on some blood tests to rule out an infection that could potentially be dangerous.  We left to drive home on Saturday, feeling terrible about leaving Matt's parents marooned in Cooperstown, NY (a beautiful, amazing town, by the way - highly recommend as a summer family vacation).  Today is Tuesday, and they are still at the hospital.  It turns out that he may have the infection - which has nothing to do with his back pain, which is what brought him into the hospital in the first place, so he has to stay a little longer.  The moral of the story?  I have no idea, but suffice it to say that we were all exhausted by our lake getaway.  Matt spent much of the week in the hospital with his parents, while I spend much of the week at the lake trying to keep up with the three kids, or driving back and forth to visit Matt and his parents.  The kids actually had a great week, and we all had some fun together in between hospital visits.  Everybody except for Grandpa, of course.

Now we're back at home and trying to get ready for school and Fall and putting the house back together.  Whenever I go away for a while, I come back home wanting to reorganize the whole house.  Why is this?  It's such a bad habit, as I get halfway into it and then loose interest in the project.  But I still have taken everything out of drawers and off of shelves and have pieces of furniture floating around the house, inconvenient islands that everyone has to wedge themselves around to move from one room to another.  So that's what we're up to.  Just life, but after the last week, I'm actually really happy to be back to it.