Missed Meeting

It is nearly 7:30, and I am sitting, spent and wasted, in front of the computer screen, my burning eyes longing to close for the night, but it's still too early. It was the day from hell I forsaw last week when I took my father to the hospital. That's why I am not at the meeting at school, as I always am before the beginning of the semester.
Today was a bad day for my dad. He didn't sleep last night, his legs swollen with fluids and a terrible pain in his right leg (the side affected by his stroke). Though he was back on the walker, he was bent and obviously in pain, slowly making his way toward the car. I had to take him to a follow-up appointment at his doctor at UCI MC.
The doctor herself had the cold that has been going around. She looked miserable, her nose swollen and her voice harsh and throaty. When we filled her in (partially at least) on what had gone on at the hospital and since--there was so much to tell--she interrupted us to say that she wanted my father to have an ultrasound on his leg to be sure there were no bloodclots and a chest x-ray. But we would have to go home and come back in the afternoon because there were no openings till then.
So I turned around and drove home. Dad had lunch at his house and I grabbed a quick bowl of noodles also and filled Jeremy in on what was going on. Then I got back in the car and took dad back to the hospital for the tests.
It was pretty tough for us to get to the hospital from the parking structure. It became evident that dad needed a wheelchair, but I had the walker to deal with also. So I asked a friendly looking nurse for help. She said my dad reminded her of her own father, and she stuck with us, recruiting help from a passing shuttle driver, who got me a wheelchair. But I had a terrible time pushing my father up the ramp toward the door of the hospital, almost being run over by a run-away chair on the downhill, pushing with all my might on the uphill. The information desk stashed the walker for us, as we rushed toward Radiation for the ultrasound.
By the time we finished the testing, it was already 4:00. We still had to go back to the doctor and hear about the results of the test, but dad was getting sicker and sicker, with chills and pain. His hands were ice cold, his head hot. And he had to pee but couldn't. His stomach was hard and hurt when the ultrasound technician pushed it. We couldn't button his pants, even though he had lost almost 5 pounds since he had last been at the doctor's office. Something was up.
The doctor had gone home by this time, too sick to keep seeing patients. The nurse practitioner took us into her office, and was surprised to hear me say that my dad couldn't pee. Why hadn't we told the doctor that earlier? The simple answer was that my had hadn't told me until after we saw the doctor. He said, "She didn't ask."
She palpated his abdomen, and alarmed, ordered a catheter to be placed in his urethra. For the next hour and a half, the nurses took two quart-size flagons of dark gold pee from my father., and more was still dribbling out when they quit. They left the catheter and a bag in there, and sent us home with the promise that we would return tomorrow afternoon. And on Monday to see the specialist.
It was 7 when I walked in the door with a rotisserie chicken and sides from the market. I was exhausted and shell-shocked, and all I wanted to do was sit still in front of the tv set or computer, not to get back in the car and go to school. So here I am, telling myself that I will go to the meeting tomorrow instead.