One of the inevitable things about getting older is that the people around you who you love tend not to stay healthy forever. Both my father and brother have rather serious health issues but only one of them cares enough to do anything about it.

My father just found out that one of his arteries has some blockage and he needs to have an angioplasty performed. I feel bad for my him because I know this whole episode is scaring the shit out of him, even though he won’t admit it. It all started when he broke his foot the other day and found out that he needs to have surgury on it. He complained of trouble breathing so his doctor told him to have his heart checked out before having the foot surgury. That’s when he found out about the blockage. The good news is that according the the doctors the blockage isn’t so bad that he can’t have the surgury performed first.

Then there’s my brother, who recently found out that both of his kidneys have completely failed and has been told that he needs to start dialysis. The upsetting part with my brother is that he insists that he “feels no worse” so he’s not doing anything about the problem. The problem is that if he doesn’t get started on dialysis soon his health will deteriorate to the point where a transplant won’t be possible and he’ll either be on dialysis for the rest of his life, or die.

All this news has taken its toll on me and as a result I haven’t been sleeping well lately. I’ve been using this weekend to catch up a little and I think writing this post is helping some…