I'm sitting next to my dad at Missouri Baptist. We'll be headed back to Barnes West soon (Hospitals).
He's had recurring pancreatitis (sp?) for a long time now. His doctor recently noticed something and had him go in for a CAT scan. They noticed some issues and sent him in to have some endoscopic procedures done. There are more details, but that's not the point of this post.
He drinks 8-10 drinks per week, that's a conservative guess. It's actually probably quite a bit more than that. He smokes 2 packs per day. He says he wants to quit, but it's not really true. If he really wanted to, he'd at least try. I know these are both addictions/diseases (depending on your point of view) and are very difficult to quit. My mom died from drinking at 52, and went through several "clinics". So I've seen these things destroy people. But he doesn't even try, so he doesn't really want to quit.
Case in point. He's got a couple stints in his heart because of the blockages due to smoking. His pancreatitis is from all the drinking and the pancreatitis caused diabetes. So now he's in the hospital to figure out the latest deal with his pancreas. The first chance he got to get up and walk around - yup, he went out to smoke. Had 3 or 4 yesterday. And I guaran-damn-tee he's going to have a drink or two first chance he gets.
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Are those in St. Louis or are there more than I know?
You can lead a horse to water and all that. You can only do what you can do. If he won't help himself, there's not much else that you can do. Have you told him how all of this makes you feel? Does he seem to care that it bothers you? If not, then I don't know what else you can do.
Yah, St. Louis. He was released on Friday and I'm back in KC now.
He'll have to go back soon for some follow up stuff.
We've talked about it a little in the past, but I should probably try talking to him some more.
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