Health Woes, or, The Year From Hell rolls on and on

The Holt Family Health Crisis begun in July of last year continues. Dad's doing great! Now it's Sean!

Sean got back from Japan last week. While in Japan, he got a liver infection and spent several weeks in his room, off work and visited by the doctors. They finally let him go back to work, and he starts coughing up blood! Since
he's due to be shipped
home in a couple of weeks, he decides not to tell anyone, because he doesn't want to be stuck in Japan.

Back in Beaufort, he goes to the doctor, who strongly suggests that he call his family. Immediately. Because he might not get another chance to talk to us.

The next day, the doctor tells him that it may not be as serious as they thought, but it may be bad enough for him to be discharged from the Corps. So, his October deployment to Iraq, which he has kind have been looking forward to, is now out the window. He has some tests done, and he calls us to tell us he will let us know the results.

I should also mention that in the six months he was in Japan, he emailed us three times. In the week after he got back, he emailed me five times.

Now it's a week later, and the emails have stopped. We know he was supposed to have gotten the test results back. So we called Rodney. Rodney said that the latest diagnosis is an ulcer. He said that all the blood thinners (read: beer) that Sean was taking had aggravated it, hence the blood! And now he's not being discharged, but being deployed to an aircraft carrier.

You now have the setup for the rest of this entry, except that when Dad was sick, he was diagnosed with alcoholic pancreatitis, despite the fact that he drinks maybe two alcoholic drinks a month. Maybe.

I tell Gary this and he says, "Hell, if he got that from what little he drank, imagine what we’ll have!!!" So I email Gary the latest news about Sean. I suggest that we are screwed, and add, " I guess we'll be outside the detox center waiting on Dad and Sean. 'Course, we'll have a keg." Gary writes back, "Man, we are screwed. I think I may give up the sauce.............someday."

I responded, "Yeah. Me too. Someday. After an Oktoberfest."