Things have been crazy and intense this week. For some reason, during the almost entire two years Andrew and I have been married it has been impossible for us to go on a two-three month stretch without something pretty significant impacting our lives. And here we are again. My closest friends know that about 7 months ago my dad was diagnosed with congestive heart failure and was in the hospital for a little over a week. It was an absolute shock! He lost about 40 lbs, consisting of mostly fluid trapped near his heart, delt with an extreme change diet due to sodium intake, less energy and generally just not feeling well. He pulled through it slowly but surely and although it was constantly in the back of my mind I had come to the point finally, that he was going to be "alright". That is until about 7:00 Monday evening when I got a call from my mom saying they were back in the emergency room.

Dad was finally admitted back into the hospital at 3:00am that same night and has yet to come home. He had a heart catheter today to tell us if he had a blockage that would result in a stint or that there was no blockage and his heart simply was not beating as it should resulting in surgery and a heart defibrillator. Unfortunately, the results were as both my mom and I had secretly been thinking separately it was. There is no blockage and my dad is going to have a defibrillator surgically placed near his heart very soon. For those of you who don't know... this means that each time my dad's heart begins to beat irregularly or skips beats totally he will receive an electric shock directly to the heart. It is apparently painful and can cause a person to faint. In a nutshell this is not the result we were hoping for.

I believe that God does not give us things we can not and are not meant to handle. But I will confess, it has taken a lot for me not to be angry and ask, why? I know most daughters would say the same but there is not one ounce of my dad that this condition should be taking away from us. It is not fair and it is not right but what can we do? There are times when I truly think I can't take one more thing and that it's all just too much for one person to handle. But this isn't happening to ME this is happening to the best man I know.

This is the first that anyone outside of my family has heard this news so first I want to apologize for not communicating as I should (I've never been good or comfortable with expressing things like this) and two, ask for your prayers. For my dad especially but also for my mom, she is the strength for him right now and she needs someone to give her the strength and peace she needs during this time too.