I’m spending another night at the hospital. My dad is feeling fine — his chest incision and areas of his legs where the surgeons took the grafts are healing normally, but now, he has an infection on his arm from the IV because it seems that his skin was so thick that the nurses had problems placing the IV into his vein. His arm swelled up to about one and a half times its normal size, and it got to a point where when the nurse took his blood pressure, the blood pressure machine cuff got so tight on his arm that my dad said he felt like his whole arm was going to explode — the woes of having a dad with literally thick skin.

This will be his eighth night in the hospital. We were originally hoping he’d only have to stay here for six nights, but it seems it’s going on for eight or nine now. Part of me is a bit relieved that he will be staying because it means less care taking on my mom’s part and more for the staff here to do, but the other part of me just wants him settled back at home to be comfortable and in his own space. Because my time here is coming to an end, my mom is gradually hinting that I should extend my stay since she says “I can’t handle all this by myself. There is so much to do. How am I supposed to do all this myself?” The guilt tripping had to start at some point, so I guess that some point is now. In the beginning, I heard a lot of “thank you for supporting Daddy and me.” Somewhere along the way, it became, “I’m not going to be angry with you if you decide not to, but you really should stay here longer.” Thanks, Mom.