Enlarged Heart

A week ago, my father announced that he'd made an appointment with a doctor--that he needed to see somebody. This was notable because my father had refused for 20 years before that moment to see a doctor, or discuss seeing a doctor. My father is 70.

Today he gets out of the hospital, and brings home with him a brain-numbing array of diagnoses and treatment requirements: atrial fibrillation, congestive heart failure, senior-onset diabetes. Would it have been different if we'd gotten them one at a time--diabetes, probably, first? Or is the shock just about crossing through the door, from having a healthy older parent to having one who isn't? Horrible, I know, that even these moments reduce to selfish introspection, but they do. Parenting my kids is one thing: they don't bark back at me, or struggle with issues of power and control. But Dad... Maybe a week in a hospital bed has changed the dynamic; too soon to tell.